


Panor

by Rinkafic



Series: Keri 'verse [3]
Category: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1
Genre: F/M, M/M, Mpreg, Stargate Atlantis AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-05
Updated: 2012-05-06
Packaged: 2017-11-04 20:33:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 23
Words: 132,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/397951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rinkafic/pseuds/Rinkafic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In this sequel to <i>Keri</i>, things get a little out of hand when the Atlantis AI takes initiative in solving a rather big problem for the expedition.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Start of Something

**Author's Note:**

> I should thank my betas up front and exuberantly. This was absolute torture for them, I promise you. We all learned a lesson: do not attempt to beta Rinx WIPs.
> 
> I thank:   
> Kyaraelf for the science and cheer leading. Clwilson2006 for the corrections and plot checks and constant urgings to add more Parrish/Lorne. The new ~~victim~~ beta, Ashke for taking a risk and cheering me on. Artist extraordinaire Kazbaby, again, for the _Keri_ artwork that I love and for being crazy enough to beta read. And Camshaft22, for always being there and loving me and my stuff seemingly unconditionally. I love you. 
> 
> This would not be done if it were not for these ladies urging me onward. Well, their nagging and the fans of _Keri_ who wrote me some pretty damned persuasive emails and PMs to get this thing off the ground. I thank those of you who begged for more and surprised the heck out of me by liking this 'verse.
> 
> Also, I tried something a little different with the chapters for _Panor_ \- I broke the naughty bits out of the whole and segregated the sex scenes into their own chapters. You can skip those chapters and not miss too much of the plot. Therefore, some chapters are itty bitty and some are really big!
> 
> Warnings for the whole piece:  
> I killed people.
> 
> I committed MPREG. This entire story is hopefully exorcising my need to ever do MPREG again. 
> 
> I briefly considered calling this Atlantis General Hospital.

**August**  
A knock on the lab door caught Alison’s attention. It was a surprise because no one knocked on the doors in Atlantis, and most people just walked right into the Conservation Labs without using the Ancient chimes. She spun on her stool towards the door and saw a sandy-haired man hovering there nervously. “Yes? May I help you with something?”

“Hi. I’m looking for…” he checked a piece of paper in his hand, “Doctor Porter?”

Raising her hand, Allie waggled her fingers and smiled cheerily. “That would be me. Come on in!”

He reached back behind him and dragged a rolling hand cart into the lab with him. It had boxes stacked on it. “Doctor Beckett sent these crates down for you, and he apologizes for the delay.”

“Oh, the equipment, finally!” Allie clapped her hands and jumped up from her stool to run over to the crates. Bouncing from foot to foot, she waited impatiently as he tugged the straps loose. “Doctor Beckett wasn’t certain he’d even be able to find an extra one of these. I was getting tired of hauling myself halfway across the city just to use the centrifuge. I’m glad the infirmary agreed to lend me theirs for a while.”

He smiled as he handed her the loose straps. “What’s a centrifuge?”

Twisting the nylon webbing between her hands with nervous excitement, she explained, “A machine that spins objects around a fixed point. I need one for my research.”

He nodded and lifted one of the boxes. She pointed to an empty table nearby and he carried it over. “Are you a medical doctor? I’ve been working in the infirmary for a few months; I thought I knew everyone on the medical staff, I’ve never seen you there.”

“No. I’m a biochemist. I’m working on The Problem; the conservation of the species.”

He brought the other cases over as Allie started prying the lid off the first. “Ah, I see. I heard a little about that, something to do with fertility, right?”

She blinked as she looked up at him. “You’re kidding me, Mister…?”

“Quinn, Jonas Quinn.”

“Mister Quinn, how could you possibly not know about the threat facing our people? Every school child knows the basics of our biology.”

The smile he flashed her was absolutely adorable. “I’m from Langara, Doctor Porter. We had a different set of problems to contend with while I was growing up, more world blowing up sort of things.”

“Oh. I’m sorry. I completely forgot that some of the second wave people were not from Earth. How narrow-minded of me. My apologies, Mister Quinn.”

“No offense taken. I’m still learning about Earth, and I guess people are still figuring us out too. Doctor Beckett likes to use me for a pin cushion every now and then; they’re using my blood for some comparison in the studies they’re doing.”

“I’m sure I’ve had slides cross my ‘scope with your samples on them,” Allie laughed lightly.

She lifted the centrifuge from the case, but misjudged the weight of it. She let out a panicked gasp as she started to topple backwards. A strong arm caught her around the waist as Jonas grasped the edge of the machine with his other hand. Together, they set it safely on the table. “Thanks. I would have been in real trouble if I’d broken that. Functioning lab equipment is in short supply these days.”

“I heard a lot of stuff got damaged when they were tossing it through the Gate during the evacuations. I’ve been helping disassemble the irreparable broken equipment for parts.” He had not moved his arm; Allie was still pressed tightly against him, her back to his front. “Show me how that works. I like to know how things work.”

Allie knew she should move away from him. She was hardly in the habit of letting strange men touch her. Not that she had often been in a position to be in this kind of position. As a female _panor_ , Allie was used to being the pursuer, on those very rare occasions in the past when she had contemplated and searched for a _keri_ of her own. She had long ago given up hope of finding a mate; the pool of eligible _keri_ was so small, even before the Hrsul had come and destroyed Earth. Now? Allie, like many of the other _panor_ on Atlantis, was hanging her hopes on the Conservation Project. But as a key researcher on The Project, Allie knew how desperate things were, and she had started to resign herself to a mateless, childless life.

It was hard to think with a warm male pressed against her. Her mother had accused her of being too picky, limiting herself only to males while she had been searching. Allie couldn’t help it, she liked men. She had dated a few baseline men while she’d been in college. Who hadn’t? She liked their size, their scent, their coarseness. She liked the feel of a man when he made love to her. Women were too soft and squishy. To please her mother and prove she was seriously seeking a mate, Allie had dated a few female _keri_ , but nothing had come of it.

“This piece here opens. These holes are the same size as the standard size test tubes we use. You would drop your filled sample tubes in here,” Allie touched a fingertip to an empty hole inside the chamber. “It is most important that the centrifuge be balanced properly, or it will not work. Then you close the top, set the dial and turn it on. The machine does the rest. The samples go for a lovely spin and get ready for my test.”

“The force of the spin would make the dense materials separate to the bottom of the tubes,” Jonas said, leaning closer and running a finger along the inside edge of the machine.

She glanced up at him, “Exactly.”

He seemed to realize that he was still holding her. He glanced down at his arm and then suddenly let go of her and backed away. “Interesting. I’ll keep an eye out for one of these in the bins of damaged stuff, maybe one can be repaired so you don’t have to borrow one from Medical.”

“Thank you, Mister Quinn,” she gave him a grateful smile.

“You’re doing important work, from what I hear.”

She nodded. “The prime mandate from the Overseer’s Office; Mission One. Well, the most important mission aside from figuring out how to make a ZPM, I’m very glad I’m not in THAT department, I’ll stick to biochemistry.”

“It was nice meeting you, Doctor Porter. Good luck with your research.” He gave her a friendly smile and a wave as he dragged his hand cart along behind him out the door.

Watching him go, Allie gave a sigh. He’d been handsome, and nice, and smart from what she could tell after such a brief conversation. If he’d been _keri_ , Allie would have snapped him up in a heartbeat. She laughed as she dropped back onto her stool. If he’d been _keri_ , some other _panor_ would have claimed him a long time ago. He probably had a girlfriend already, or a boyfriend.

There were plenty of baseline humans around that were free to do as they pleased, with no need to be concerned about spreading their genetic material. In the face of possible extinction the Genetic Laws set down by the Earth governments were still being upheld on Atlantis. _Keri_ and _panor_ were required to pair up for mating purposes before romantic ones. They could take baseline humans as life partners only after they had found a bondmate and done their duty for society. Allie sighed and bent to her microscope; unless a miracle happened and they had a sudden, massive increase in the number of _keri_ , she was quite likely doomed to a solitary life so there was very little point in wishing otherwise.

~*~

As he returned to the infirmary, Jonas couldn’t help but think about the sad-eyes of Doctor Porter. She had been friendly. While the sadness hadn’t carried over to her manner, her eyes had held something that Jonas thought he understood, something he saw in the mirror every morning as he shaved.

Doctor Fraiser had put him to work in the infirmary back at the Earth Alpha Site as soon as his broken arm had healed after the emergency evacuation of Langara. He liked Doctor Fraiser and her staff, they soon became his friends. Eager to be useful, he had been acting as an orderly, doing anything that needed to be done that did not require extensive medical training. He carried stuff around - a lot - moving things and people from place to place. He cleaned up messes, a lot of messes, some of them quite disgusting and disturbing. When his penchant for fixing things and tinkering around with equipment had come to light, he had been asked to help fix various pieces of malfunctioning equipment. He had repaired quite a few things that would otherwise have been sent to Engineering to molder in the queue on a shelf for someone to look at eventually. In the meantime, while Engineering worked on more important equipment, the Medical Department had been doing without. His talent was very appreciated by the medical staff.

By the time he got to Atlantis, after the Alpha Site had fallen to the Hrsul as well, Jonas had started to come to terms with the loss of his homeworld. There was no going back; everything there was lost to him. He had been trying his best to make a new life here, just like everyone else that had been part of the evacuations. He knew that he was lucky to be alive. He said prayers of thanks to the goddess at every full moon for sparing him.

Everyone had lost people. Surely quiet little Doctor Porter was no exception. But what he had glimpsed in her eyes had been akin to what Jonas felt so deeply within himself: apart, alone. He might be reading more into it than was there. He shook his head to clear away the train of thought. Jonas had work to do.

He smiled at Lee Pei as the geologist walked past him on the way out of the infirmary. Pei was a regular in the infirmary; he was carrying and came in to have frequent checkups with Doctor Fraiser. It still boggled Jonas’ mind, seeing the man with the bloated belly and knowing he carried a baby inside him. Jonas knew the science; it had been explained piecemeal to him each time he’d been caught staring by one of the doctors or nurses, but it still amazed him.

“Ah, Jonas, good! Could you come and help me lift the Sergeant here?” Doctor Beckett waved to him from a patient’s bedside. Jonas went to the sink and washed his hands and then went to help the doctor. It took both of them to lift the large, unconscious soldier and shift him onto the bed.

“Good. He should be much more comfortable now. Come with me, Jonas, I have a wee gadget that’s acting up again, if you could have a look at it.”

As they walked across the infirmary together, Jonas cleared his throat, “Carson, how well do you know Doctor Porter?”

“Allie? As well as I know any of the first wave people, I suppose. She’s come highly recommended and seems to know her stuff. My friend Perna from Hoff likes her a lot. She’s making very good progress on The Project.”

“Is she married?’

“You mean bonded, lad. We don’t marry any more. No, she hasn’t taken a _keri_. There are not enough to go around, I suppose the lass never found one she liked.”

This was something that bugged Jonas. “So, she can’t find a _keri_ because there aren’t enough for everyone to pair off, but she can’t take up with anyone that isn’t _keri_ because she’s a _panor_?”

Beckett nodded. “Aye. There’s a lot of folks that have been talking about having that law changed, but the consequences could be disastrous, should it become the norm. It was a law enacted to save our species.”

Belatedly, Jonas realized that Beckett was in the same situation as Doctor Porter; he too was an unmated _panor_. He felt a little bad for bringing up what must be a sore subject. He wondered now about the rumors floating around about Carson and Perna from Hoff. “So you can’t date or keep company?”

“Oh, aye, we can do that. There’s no law against that, but it is discouraged; since a match with no hope of a bond could never be recognized as legal for either a _keri_ or _panor_.”

That made Jonas feel a little better. At least they didn’t have to isolate themselves like some sort of diseased cast offs.

“The power keeps flickering on this beastie.” Picking up a monitor from a shelf, Carson handed it to Jonas. “I believe Allie eats lunch in the mess hall with the rest of the Biochem team at thirteen hundred hours.”

“It might be a short in the wires. And thanks, Carson.”

Beckett smiled and walked away. “We all need friends, some of us more than others.”

~*~

Rearranging his mealtime had been easy, he merely told the duty nurse he was going to start going a little later than usual every day. She had shrugged and said it was fine since it did not interfere with the schedules of any of the other orderlies.

Jonas filled his tray and scanned the crowded mess hall, looking for the pretty brunette he had been unable to stop thinking about. Beckett had said Doctor Porter took her midday meal with the rest of her team. There were five mess halls operating in the city now; it might take him a few days to figure out which one the Biochem team usually ate at. He had not seen her yesterday or the day before when he had come looking for her.

Luck seemed to be with him today, however. He saw Doctor Porter sitting near the wall. She seemed to be by herself. There were others at the tables around her, but no one sitting beside or across from her. Nervously, he wove his way through the tables. “Hello again, Doctor Porter, do you mind if I eat here?”

“No, of course not. There’s no need to be so formal, call me Allie, Mister Quinn.”

He hoped the smile on his face didn’t look stupid. “Then you must call me Jonas.” He sat down in the chair across from her.

“I will. How are things up in Medical?” She took a sip of her drink.

“The usual. Not too many sick people, which is good. I heard the off-world travel is being kept to the bare minimum to avoid contagion or provoking the Wraith, so there haven’t been any injured Gate Teams coming through. But there are still no new _keri_ pregnancies. How are things with your project?”

She smiled and scooped up some mashed tava root. “I isolated a piece of the modified _keri_ gene sequence, one of the Jirante’s secret changes from way back when. My department is very excited about that.”

“Congratulations. The Jirante were the ones that changed your people after the plagues, right?”

“Yes. Unfortunately they and all their helpful technology and procedures went the way of the dodo when the Hrsul overran their planet on the way to Earth. We will never truly understand what they did to make the _keri_ and _panor_ what they… what we are,” she shrugged. “In another generation, it won’t matter, it will be too late to change things. And a generation after that, we’ll be dying out.”

Jonas suddenly reached across the table and clasped her hand. “Don’t give up. If you give up, it will be over. You and your scientists will find a way to fix this. Just don’t give up.”

She smiled and flipped her palm over to interlock their fingers and squeeze his hand. “You’re a funny man, Jonas. You make me feel better.”

“Do you like poetry?”

She shrugged, mildly amused by the sudden change of subject, though she was relieved, it had been growing dark and depressing. “I guess so. I took classes as an undergrad and studied some then, I liked it. Why?”

“I like Earth poetry. They do readings every Wednesday evening in the Memorial Garden. I like to go there and listen. I thought… well, it would be nice to have someone to listen with that could tell me what some of the references mean. I don’t know much Earth history or her cultures very well yet, I think I miss some of the deeper meanings.”

“I would be honored to be your translator tonight.” Allie smiled and tugged her hand back so that she could finish eating.

As he walked back to work, Jonas realized he had no clue what he had eaten for lunch today. That had never happened before; food was a bit of an obsession for him. He remembered that Allie had very blue eyes. The tiny mole over her upper lip moved when she smiled. The fringe of dark brown hair on her forehead just barely touched her eyebrows. Her fingers were so tiny; he had felt like they might break if he had held her hand too tightly. But when she had squeezed his, there had been surprising strength there.

“Oh, is it like that, then?” Carson crossed his arms as Jonas wandered back into the infirmary. Doctor Beckett looked over at Doctor Fraiser and smirked. “Moony eyes, I think our lad is smitten.”

“I have to agree with you there, Carson,” Janet smiled back at Carson and then winked at Jonas.

Jonas shook his head and waved in embarrassed dismissal of his friends, heading for the storage area where he had left a machine in pieces before his meal break. Along the way, he swerved to go to the Ancient Incubator.

“Hi, Little T,” he said as he looked through the frosted glass. Everyone called the baby in there “Little T” - Jonas didn’t know why. Tim the nurse had explained to Jonas that this baby and device were very important to Doctor Beckett and his team. If this first little one made it through and came out alright, it meant that other babies that might otherwise die could be born. He couldn’t see a baby, but he believed there was one in there. He saw one of the soldiers, an officer, come by every day to talk to the unit, he wondered if the man was one of the baby’s parents. The baby had to have parents. After all, someone had provided the genetic material.

He put a palm to the glass and whispered, “May Elestia bless and keep you, child,” it had become a habit, whenever he passed by the unit to say the traditional prayer. He stepped away and went back to the mess in the workroom.

Jonas found his thoughts wandering to Allie. He had to force himself back to his task when he nicked his thumb on the edge of a rotor blade and sent a spray of blood across the room. It didn’t stop bleeding when he sucked on it, so he climbed to his feet and went out into the infirmary.

“I need a bandage!” he called as he saw Carson and Janet with their heads bent together over a microscope.

~*~

“So, it is a ghost story?”

Allie walked along the path beside Jonas after the evening poetry readings had finished. “I suppose. I always thought of it as a story of sacrifice for love.”

“I like the ghost story part,” Jonas smiled and took her hand. It seemed a natural thing to do.

After the reading had been over, the crowd had separated into small groups, most discussing various aspects of the poems that had been read. It had been a bit intimidating and overwhelming, even to Allie. Academics could be that way about their passions. No wonder Jonas had felt the need for a translator.

The Memorial Garden was surrounded by the city on all four sides, protected from the elements. There was a pond, with benches nearby. Allie dropped the blanket they had been sitting on for the readings onto the hard bench and she and Jonas sat on it again as it padded the hard Ancient bench. He watched one of the small water birds waddle on the grass beside the water and laughed lightly at its antics. It reminded Allie a little of a duck, but it wasn’t one. They didn’t have ducks; no one had time or thought to bring animals during the evacuations. So much lost, Allie thought. She wondered if animals still survived on Earth or if the Hrsul had killed them too.

Jonas spoke after a few moments of watching the not-duck. “It seems a waste in the end, the landlord’s daughter died for nothing, since he died too.”

“I think the point was they both died for love of each other.”

“Or to haunt the moor. What’s a moor?”

She smiled at his enthusiasm for the ghost story elements of the old poem. “A moor is a marshland, very creepy and spooky at night, or so I saw in movies when I was a child. A country called England was very well known for having vast marshlands. Lots of scary tales came from there.”

“More scary tales, about what?”

“My mom liked old movies; a lot of them were based on books. There was one, oh, you’d probably love it, another ghost story called _Wuthering Heights._ And there are some mysteries too, by Arthur Conan Doyle; one of those had the moors in it. And evil dogs.”

He smiled and leaned closer. “What’s a dog?”

“A canine, four legged domesticated canines; we kept them as pets. Sometimes they were service animals trained to help the blind or sick.”

“Furry, with floppy ears and big snouts?” Jonas motioned near his nose with one hand. When Allie nodded hesitantly he said, “Doctor Biro has a photograph on her desk of a creature like that.”

“A family pet most likely.”

“My family had _lumas._ They hunted rodents and helped keep the bugs out of the house. They were cute, furry. Adorable when they were _lumlins_ , with big eyes, ears that looked like they would topple them over when they started walking. I had one named Roo, until I went off to study at the Institute. My mother gave it away to a neighbor when I left, it never got on well with my father.”

“What did you study?”

“Engineering.”

Allie blinked in surprise. “Did you finish your course of study?”

“Yes. Then I was sent to apprentice to learn how to run my father’s business. He owned a hotel.”

“Did you tell anyone about that? The Engineering Department could probably use your help.”

He laughed and waved a hand. “It was a long time ago. And I never studied anything like these Ancient devices.”

“Still... Jonas, you should go and see Doctor McKay, tell him about your background. They might be able to use your help on a project. There are so many things to be done.”

He shrugged. “I like working in the infirmary. I fix a lot of things that would not get fixed because the Engineering Department doesn’t have time for them. They need orderlies there too.”

She could tell the discussion was making him uncomfortable; he was squirming a little in his chair. She changed the subject. “What did you think of the first poem, the sonnet?”

It was a good switch of topics and the right tactic. Jonas relaxed immediately. “I liked the imagery, and the pattern of the rhyme. But there were no ghosts.”

Allie laughed. “Funny man, you’re obsessed. I think _Wuthering Heights_ is on the intranet. You should be able to access it from a tablet.”

He shrugged. “I don’t have one. It doesn’t matter, I cannot read English, and the translator programs are too involved, dedicated on working to decipher the Ancient database to waste time using the resource for entertainment purposes. That’s why I started coming here to hear the poetry.”

“I forgot about the Gate’s translator. I take so much for granted. I have a tablet. I could read it for you, if you would like to hear the story.” Allie knew they could probably find the movie, but that would be over and done in two hours. The prospect of reading a book, of spending more time with Jonas, was too good to pass up.

He nodded and grinned happily. “That would be awesome!”

“I see you’ve picked up some slang,” Allie remarked.

“Can’t help it, I guess,” he shrugged. “Janet says I’m a sponge.”

“There’s a quiet spot with couches on a balcony near the mess hall, how about we meet there tomorrow? Eighteen hundred hours?”

Jonas smiled and nodded. “Perfect timing. You’ll bring the book, I suppose?”

“Of course. You’ll have to put up with my reading voice. I have to warn you, I don’t really do funny voices or accents.”

“I like your voice just as it is.”

The statement warmed her. So did the way he was watching her. She had thought his eyes were brown, but up close she saw they were hazel. His hair had more gold in it than brown. Allie shook her head to clear her meandering thoughts. “So, any other poetry questions?”

“What’s a sonnet?”

She managed to mangle the explanation of couplets and rhyme patterns and tossed Will Shakespeare in there for good measure, leaving Jonas blinking at her in confusion, his eyes a little glazed over by the time she stuttered to a lame halt.

“Well, why don’t we just start with a novel? We can work up to Shakespeare later.”

He nodded eagerly, clearly glad to leave sonnets for another time; so was Allie.

It seemed she’d acquired an alien friend, completely by accident. She really hadn’t spent time with any aliens before. Sure, she had seen the Jirante years ago when she’d undergone the procedure, and then she’d met a few at Caltech, and there were quite a few here in Atlantis, but she had never actually had an alien as a friend. Nor had she ever known anyone someone with a completely different background than her own. Allie found herself intrigued by the Langaren man.

“We have to make a deal, though,” Allie said, holding up her hand before he thought the arrangements completely done.

“What kind of deal?”

She cleared her throat. “I’ll read _Wuthering Heights_ with you. And then you have to tell me a story from Langara.”

“I can do that, fair trade.”

“Good.”

“Good.”

~*~

Chuck pulled himself up onto the exam table and looked around the Atlantis infirmary nervously as he waited for Doctor Fraiser to set up the ultrasound machine.

The blood tests had come back positive, he was carrying. This was not what he had expected at all, not from what had amounted to a one night stand.

“Make yourself comfortable, Mister Campbell,” she said kindly.

“Please call me Chuck, everyone else does. Are you sure about those tests, Doctor? I mean, it was only the once, and I’m not bonded to him, and can this really happen?” He knew his voice was cracking at the end. “I mean, it was really hot and crazy while everything was going on, but after he left, everything faded, I don’t feel any kind of connection to him at all now. I haven’t seen him in weeks.”

She set down the tool she had been holding and moved to stand beside him. She put a hand on his shoulder and gave a gentle squeeze as she nodded. “Yes Chuck, we double checked the tests. This can really happen, it happens rarely, but a full bond does not have to form to result in a _keri_ pregnancy. You and your partner were both fertile at the time of copulation. The bond that did form, though temporary, was enough for conception to occur.”

“What am I going to do now?” he whispered as she pushed the exam gown open and squirted sticky, cool gel on his belly. “He didn’t want me; he didn’t even want to see me after.”

Doctor Fraiser frowned. “Did he say that, Chuck?” She was moving a wand around on his belly.

“He left. He freaked out and he left as soon as it was done. I saw him once in the corridor outside the mess hall and he turned around and went the other way. He doesn’t want to see me.”

She continued to frown. “If you’d like to tell me his name, I’ll track him down and kick him for you.”

He smiled at her tone. “Is that something you usually do for your patients?”

“When someone is acting like a jerk, I get the overwhelming urge to kick them in the shins. But it is generally frowned upon, so I resist. However, I suppose I could make an exception in your case.”

“He’d wonder why you were attacking him, and that would lead to uncomfortable conversations and I don’t think I want him to find out about this that way. Thanks for the offer, Doctor Fraiser.” He knew she had been fishing for the name of his _panor_ bed partner, but he was unwilling to reveal that, it was his shame to keep. The law did not require that a pregnant _keri_ divulge the paternity of their child.

“Would you like to have a peek?” She tapped the edge of the monitor screen in front of her. When he nodded, she turned it towards him. “This is the head; you can see the curve of the back here.” She pointed at the gray blob and he could see the outline.

“This was not what I expected the cause of my stomach ache to be, Doctor. What am I going to do?”

“Well, you’re going to start by eating healthy meals, sleeping regularly, and taking vitamins. As things progress, we can talk about the options you have for after the baby comes. You can keep the baby or you can give it up for adoption, if you choose, but you don’t have to decide yet, Chuck.”

He was pregnant. And alone. His life had just taken a turn for the worse

 

 **September**  
Reading after work with Jonas became a regular thing. So did poetry in the Memorial Garden every Wednesday. So did lunch. Within weeks, Allie had forgotten what she used to do with her time before she had Jonas to talk to.

He introduced her to some of the few other Langaren survivors that he was friends with, and she became friendly with a woman around her age named Tenill and her husband Roge. Sometimes Tenill or Roge or both joined them for lunch or poetry or movie night. But not the book readings, Allie and Jonas hoarded that time for themselves.

It took over a month and a half to finish _Wuthering Heights_. As Allie read the last line and shut off her tablet, Jonas smiled. Then he leaned over and kissed her softly on the lips. For a second, Allie let it happen, let herself enjoy the contact. Then she pressed her palm to Jonas’ chest and gently pushed him back as she turned her head away.

“I can’t, I can’t get involved like that. It wouldn’t be fair to you.”

“I know the law. I understand, I’m not asking for anything permanent, nothing more than companionship.” He touched his fingers to her cheek and tucked her hair back behind her ear. “I care about you, Allie.”

She leaned her cheek into his palm for a moment and closed her eyes. But then she pulled away. “Not fair to you. We can only be friends.”

He looked disappointed, but nodded. “We’re still friends, aren’t we? I didn’t spoil that, did I?”

“No, no of course not. It isn’t you, Jonas, it’s me and my stupid metabolism and the law. But we can still be friends,” she cleared her throat as he leaned back. “I think given your penchant for scary ghost stories, that you might just like an author named Stephen King.”

~*~

Jonas walked Allie to her quarters and bid her goodnight, giving her a very chaste and friendly kiss on the cheek. He shook his head as the door shut behind her. He had almost ruined everything with his spontaneous urge to kiss her tonight. Acting on it had been a mistake. Slow. He had meant to go slowly. But she’d just been so irresistible, with the moonlight on her and the sea breeze blowing her hair around.

Could he be happy just being her friend?

He doubted it, but if it was all she was able to give, he would settle for it.

 

 **October**  
Unsurprisingly, Jonas had loved Stephen King and demanded to do another story as soon as they finished the first; upon learning the writer had done quite a number of novels. Allie had laughed and demanded her Langaren story before she would pick another Stephen King book for him. Jonas walked her to the pier and they sat on the edge, maintaining a respectable distance, while he told her a story about a wise old woman that had taught an entire village a lesson about sharing.

By the end she was giggling, just as he had intended.

There was an electronic message notice board near the mess hall, which they passed on their way inside. A large flashing notice caught Jonas’ eye and he pointed. “What’s that say?”

“It’s a flyer about a party for Halloween the day after tomorrow.”

“What’s Halloween?”

Allie explained about the holiday and the customs she had grown up with, and Jonas, being a very little boy at heart, smiled wider and wider as she went on. When she finished telling him about trick or treating, he was almost wriggling with excitement. “Can we go; can we go to the Halloween party?”

It seemed someone had decided it would be good for morale to celebrate the holiday. The party was to be held in the military’s mess hall in the main tower. Everyone was invited; you just had to log in to donate your evening meal rations to attend. She almost said no, but Jonas was so excited that Allie found herself nodding.

“It says there will be a mask making class; I want to make a mask too!”

And that was how Allie wound up sitting on a bench in the mess hall the next afternoon covered in glitter as Jonas trimmed and adjusted and perfected the mask he had insisted on making for her after he finished with his own. There was multi-colored glitter in her hair and it glinted on her skin when the overhead lights hit it.

Jonas laughed as he looked down at her and stroked a finger over the bare skin of her arm. “You’re all sparkly, Allie!”

How could she be mad? She helped Jonas fashion a set of horns out of some kind of crafting clay that the Education and Arts Departments had donated, explaining about the devil and demons as she twisted the red stuff. That led to a lively discussion about evil and various methods of warding it away.

One of the marines nearby saw Allie fitting the horns onto Jonas’ head and attempting to adjust the string properly. She came over and dropped a small plastic packet of face paints on the table by Allie’s hand. “That came in the blister pack I won in the craft lottery. I’m only using the white one. Use the red to do his face up properly. And don’t forget to add pointy eyebrows to make him look really sinister.”

“Thank you!” Jonas and Allie chimed together.

“No problem,” the woman said. She away turned as someone across the room shouted, “Captain Cadman!” She waved to Allie and Jonas and trotted off.

Allie set the horns beside the small packet of red makeup. “That was nice of her; you’re going to look like a proper demon, Jonas. You’ll need a tail. A pointy tail.”

“I could use some braided red wire, and hook it on my belt loop.” She ended up going with him to the infirmary to dig around in the damaged equipment bins to find a wire and fashion their finding into a tail. Tail making, it seemed, was very giggly work.

~*~

The party turned out to be a great bash. People needed to celebrate something, and the music and festive atmosphere and the food were just the way to do it. When the music started, Jonas dragged Allie out onto the dance floor and they proceeded to be silly and dance their feet off. Allie was laughing and smiling so much her jaw ached.

When the music changed to something slow and sultry, Jonas swept her into his arms and into a proper waltz. He had once again managed to surprise her with his knowledge. “How’d you learn to do this?”

“Saw it in a movie, and then I asked Doctor Biro and Doctor Fraiser to teach me. Am I doing it right?”

Staring up into his face, Allie nodded, “Perfectly.” She tucked her head under his chin and for the length of the song, and through the next one, she let herself believe she was something other than what she was. But she couldn’t keep up the façade; she knew the truth too well. Allie let out a shuddering sigh as the song ended. Another slow one started, so she didn’t have to let go of his waist, she could stay where she was for another few minutes. The trouble was, she wanted more than just a few minutes.

Jonas tucked a finger under her chin and lifted her face and peered down at her intently, “What’s wrong, Allie?”

“It’s just not fair.”

“Few things are.”

“I’m happy when I’m with you.” She rested her cheek on his chest, soaking in the warmth coming off him. This close to him; she could pick up the scent from his soap.

His hand drifted up her back, rubbing small circles through the black sweater she wore over her little black strapless dress. “You make me happy too, Allie.”

“I…” she was horrified at herself as a small sob escaped. Shaking her head, she tried to push away from Jonas, but he held her firmly in place.

“What? Allie? What’s wrong?”

Since he wasn’t letting her go, she buried her face near his throat and clung tightly to his waist.

~*~

They weren’t dancing anymore; they were merely swaying in time to the music. Jonas wasn’t certain what to do; Allie seemed really upset. She was shaking as she hugged him, actually, she was clinging to him. He nudged her into a slow shuffle, and little by little, he got them to the edge of the dance floor that had been marked out with yellow tape on the tile. Not that anyone was minding the border; people were dancing all over the place.

“Everything okay there?” a man with dark spiky hair asked Jonas, tipping his head towards Allie. Unlike the other party goers, he was dressed in a black Atlantis officer’s uniform, rather than a costume.

“I think so. Maybe we need some air.”

“Come this way, there’s a small balcony,” the man crooked a finger and Jonas turned Allie and started to follow.

“Allie, let’s get some air,” he said to her. She nodded and leaned into his side.

The man waved them outside. “Should be private out here. Give a holler if you need anything, okay Doctor Porter?” He waited, presumably to make sure Allie wasn’t in real distress.

“Yes. Thank you, sir,” Allie replied. She tugged off her mask and ran a hand through her hair. The moonlight caught the glitter that had fallen off into her hair.

When they were alone, Jonas led her to the railing. It was a different view than he was accustomed to seeing; the city spread out beneath them before reaching the sea. He pushed his mask up to the top of his head. “What’s wrong Allie? Tell me why you’re so sad, I thought we were having a fun night.” She was still shaking a little, huddled against him. It had been hot inside from all the warm bodies, and it was warm out here on the balcony, so he knew this reaction wasn’t from the cold.

“I want more than I’m entitled to. I want what I can’t have,” she answered quietly, staring at her feet.

He lifted her chin to make her look at him. “Me too, it seems. What do we do about it?”

“I don’t know! I just don’t know anymore. Things don’t make sense to me about the law anymore, not when I’m with you.”

“Why don’t we just see where things go? One day at a time. I will take whatever you give me Alison. You can have everything in my power to share with you. I wish things were different. I wish I could promise you the things a _keri_ could give you. But I’m just me, I’m not special.”

Allie threw her arms around him and started to sob against his chest. Unsure what else to do, Jonas just wrapped his arms around her and held her as she cried. Eventually she looked up at him. “Don’t say that; please don’t say anything like that again. You are so special, Jonas. You’re one of the last of your people. I’m the one that isn’t good enough. You should be trying to find someone that can make you happy and give you babies.”

He chuckled and kissed the top of her head. “There are less than a hundred of us left, Allie. My people are gone, Langara is no more and my making ten or even fifteen babies wouldn’t make a dent in bringing my people back, we both know that. There are just far too few of us to make a difference anymore. We’re Lanteans now. I’d rather be with you, you make me happy. I don’t need babies to make me happy. I need a smart little biochemist that reads to me and makes me laugh and takes the time to tell me about her home and her childhood and her people to make me happy.”

“Really?”

“I have never and would never lie to you, Alison Porter.”

She went up on her tiptoes and pressed a hesitant kiss to his lips. He still had an arm around her waist, so he lifted her a bit and deepened the kiss as she wrapped both arms around his neck; her mask dangling around her wrist tickled the bare back of his neck. She trailed kisses across his cheek to his ear and whispered, “I want more.”

He echoed her earlier question, “Really?”

“Yeah.”

Jonas started to giggle as he wiped his thumb across her lips. “You’ve got a little…” he held his thumb up for her to see and she started to giggle along with him.

“We need to wash this stuff off. My quarters are closer.” Allie took his hand and led him to the door. Once they stepped inside, Jonas exchanged nods with the spiky haired man, leaning on the wall nearby in easy view of the balcony door.

“He was watching out for you,” Jonas commented as they left the party room.

Allie glanced back and then smiled. “Commander Sheppard watches out for everyone.”

“That’s Commander Sheppard? Huh. From the stories, I thought he’d be bigger. And that he’d look meaner.”

“Get between a bonded _keri_ and their _panor_ you’ll see firsthand how mean and dangerous they can be,” Allie advised.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The scene that follows this one is a bit of Allie and Jonas NC-17 stuff. If you want to read it, carry on to Chapter 2, otherwise, you can skip to Chapter 3 without missing too much plot, 
> 
> ok, here's the point: Allie learns that Jonas is very attentive and Jonas learns that no one really treated Allie the way he thinks she should be treated. 
> 
> And since I was cutting the nookie, there's some John/Cam raunch in there too.


	2. Pron!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **This is NC-17 !**
> 
> Naughty bits!
> 
> Jonas and Allie.
> 
> John and Cam.
> 
> Evan and David.
> 
> You can skip it if you don't want to read the pron, hopefully my edit was properly done and you don't miss anything of earth shattering importance if you skip over this chapter.

“I haven’t done this often,” Allie warned Jonas. As she entered her quarters she didn’t have to fumble for the light switch, it was one advantage of having the Ancient gene. Thinking the lights brighter, she smiled at the tickle that greeted her from the city. The city seemed to like when she touched it like that. She had Jonas’ hand gripped tightly in hers, leading him inside. She laughed nervously and turned to smile at him.

“Me either,” Jonas replied as he looked around at her tidy quarters. “I was always too busy with studying; I was not a very considerate companion when I was at Institute, none of my relationships lasted very long. They did not like sharing me with the instructors, the books and the library.”

She smiled and moved closer to him. “Pretty much the same for me, I used to go out occasionally, but I never found anyone I liked enough to set aside my studying.” She slid her hands down his arms and clasped both of his hands, intertwining their fingers.

“Are you sure about this, Allie? I don’t want you to do something you don’t really want to do, that goes against your ethics.”

She pressed a kiss to his jaw, on a spot where there was no red makeup. “I’m sure. Go scrub that crap off your face, I want to kiss you properly.” She pointed towards the bathroom. He dropped his mask, horns and tail on the desk and obeyed her command.

While Jonas was in the bathroom, Allie paced around, chewing her lip. She kicked off her shoes. Was she certain? Was she doing this for the right reason? Had she been withholding for the right reason? In the past Jonas had repeatedly said he understood, he had only asked for whatever she could give. How could she turn away this chance at having some bit of happiness? Sure, it could never be legal, but she could have Jonas in her life. Maybe someday they would find a way to make more _keri_. Maybe someday Doctor Rodney McKay would admit he was wrong about something. And maybe someday pigs would wear capes and fly around the west pier.

This was right. Jonas was right. Allie smiled as he came to the bathroom door, clad in a towel. He had apparently taken a fast shower while he’d been in there; his hair was wet. The makeup was gone. She grinned at him. “I like you better like this, much less demonic. You made a very scary demon, Jonas Quinn.”

“Did I?” he edged a little further into the room, seemingly unconcerned at his state of undress.

“Uh huh, I feared for the safety of my very soul. Look, I have goose pimples.” She held an arm out so he could see the raised bumps. But they had less to do with his discarded costume and more to do with seeing him dressed only in a damp towel.

“Am I scary at all right now?”

She tilted her head and stared at him, considering it. “No.”

He pointed a finger and made a spinning motion. “Do you need help getting out of that dress?”

Allie smiled and turned around slowly, presenting her back to him. She let the sweater slide down her arms and took it off, tossing it over her desk chair as Jonas walked up behind her. “You could undo the zipper and save me some calisthenics.”

His fingers fumbled for a moment until he figured out how to undo the tiny hook and eye, and then he slid the zipper down slowly. “More layers?” he chuckled and touched his fingers to the back catch of her bra, then slid them under and tugged experimentally at the elastic.

Jonas’ hands skimmed down her sides, pushing lightly at the material of her dress and sending it down to pool at her feet. He pressed against her, his arms going around her, his hands splayed and exploring the skin he had just exposed. “So soft,” he whispered. He trailed his fingers all along the front of her, fingering the edge of her bra when he reached it and then moving up to caress her throat. He seemed to be in no hurry, his movements were slow and careful. He was handling her as if she was a fragile and precious thing that he was afraid to break. She wasn’t used to that.

“Come over this way.” Allie clasped his hand and spun out of his arms, tugging him towards the bed.

~*~

She climbed up onto the bed backwards, kneeling in the middle as he followed her. He moved up so that he was very close to her, their breath intermingling as he bracketed her knees with his and brought his face down to kiss her. His hand swept up her sides, one stopping to cup a breast, the other moving to hold her head as he explored her lips. She braced her hands on his shoulders, made a soft sound in her throat and moved up, trying to get closer to him.

When she pulled away and looked into his eyes, he saw that there was very little blue left in them, her eyes had gone very, very dark. She was breathing heavily as she moved, shifting until she was straddling his legs. She wriggled into his lap, nearly dislodging his towel in the process.

“More,” Allie whispered harshly near his ear. “I need more.” She began to move, sliding down and grinding against Jonas’ groin and then up again. She repeated the movement a few times as she began to lick and nip a trail from his collarbone to his ear.

She suddenly threw herself off him and onto her back, twisting and pushing at her panties. “Off! Help me get these off!” Jonas reached over and hooked his thumbs under the sides and tugged the black material down as she kicked to free herself from the garment. When she started wriggling her hands behind her to get at her bra, he grabbed her hips, flipped her over and undid the hook, pulling the strapless bra out from under her and tossing it over his shoulder.

He ran his hands over her bare back. “So pretty, Allie. You’re so pretty.” He stroked his hands over her rear end, perfectly rounded it fitted his hand as if she had been made for him. He kneaded softly. He leaned down and kissed a trail up her back, following his fingers as he stroked her soft skin.

She groaned and rolled over, reached for him and dragging him down for a deep kiss. She bit his lip a little and pushed at him with her tongue until he opened his mouth for her. She immediately surged forward, claiming his mouth fully. Allie’s hands tangled in his hair and she tugged him even closer.

He was panting for breath when he pulled away and looked at her. “Are you alright?”

“I’m good. This is good. I want more. I need you, Jonas. Please.”

“You’ve got me, sweetling, you’ve got me. We’re getting there. Don’t you want to go slow and enjoy the first time?”

“Fast first, make the… make the burn stop first.” Allie’s foot was stroking up and down the back of his leg and her hands were tugging at him fiercely, urging him closer.

“Burn?”

She writhed a little beneath him, wrapping both of her legs around his thighs and pulling. “I need. Don’t you feel it?”

This was not going the way he had expected, but then, Allie had never been what he expected. Deciding that he had better let her set the pace since she seemed pretty sure of what she wanted, Jonas leaned to the side and rolled onto his back. Allie felt him shift and moved with him so that she was straddling him.

“Good. This is better. This feels right.” Her palm pressed and kneaded his chest, her fingers grazing the nipples. As he shuddered at that touch, she smiled and repeated the action, this time scratching lightly with her nails. He sucked in a breath.

Allie leaned down and kissed him, again taking his mouth with her tongue. He reached up to cup a breast in each hand, rolling the nipple of one between his fingers. She moaned into his mouth and began to shift against him.

She began to push at the towel that was still somehow knotted at his waist. “Off,” she demanded. He lifted his hips and she tugged it out from under him, huffing and puffing in frustration as she did so, and tossed it aside viciously.

He sucked a breath through his teeth as her bare sex rubbed along the length of him as she wriggled back a little. Her skin was fever hot where it touched him. Allie was making a sound suspiciously like a growl in the back of her throat as she wiggled atop him, biting along his jaw and stroking his throat and chest with her hands.

“Need, now, Jonas. Please, now.”

“But…?” He had thought to play a little first, explore a bit. She had said fast first, he could wait for more later. “Okay, sweetling, okay.” He reached a hand around to touch her where she was rubbing against him so furiously. She was very wet. All the sliding and wriggling had gotten him very hard, so it wasn’t a problem to give in to her demand. He grabbed his cock with one hand and Allie’s hip with the other. “Lift up a little for me, Allie.”

She obliged and he was able to position himself a little better. She shifted back and he thrust up and into her with only two quick motions; she was so ready for him. She threw her head back and expelled a loud, breathy moan.

He grasped both her hips and held her as she began to gyrate against him, rising up and then sliding back down hard. Her nails dug into his chest as she leaned forward. She tossed her head, chanting his name as she rode him. There was no other word for it, Allie rode him, and roughly. She really did want fast. He tried to oblige her, he slid his hands up her arms, clasping her elbows and bucking up to meet her.

She sobbed out his name and he felt her clenching around his cock. The sensations were too much for him and he hit his peak, shooting hotly up into her. She stopped rocking and held still, holding him inside her as he gave a few tiny thrusts up and finished spilling. He caught her face in his hands. “Allie, I’m sorry, I meant to pull back.”

“Huh?” she grunted as she blinked at him in confusion. He smoothed the hair back out of her eyes as she blew at it.

“I wasn’t wearing a shield. I didn’t mean to…”

She laughed lightly and slapped his chest. “Oh, that? You’re not carrying any diseases, right? Medical is insane about scanning everyone.”

“No.”

“No harm done. Not like I can get pregnant; you’re not _keri_ more’s the pity, because you are so very, very fine and any _panor_ would be proud to have you as their bondmate.” She leaned down and kissed him.

He hugged her as she slowly unfolded her legs and slid down to lie atop him. “That wasn’t exactly what I was expecting,” he said after they’d had some time to relax and start breathing more normally again.

Allie smirked as she propped her chin on her fist and looked at him. “What were you expecting?”

He chuckled and pinched the tip of her nose. “Well, to be on top, for one thing.”

“Hhm. That would be different. Okay, next time, you be on top, I’ll be on the bottom.”

“And a little warming up?”

“I was plenty warm.”

He stroked her hair and smiled. “And maybe some more kissing and hugging and petting, beforehand.”

Allie smiled and shrugged. “This was what I’m used to, I thought it was fine.”

It was not what he was used to. He pushed at her shoulder until she moved off him and then rolled onto his side. He nudged at her until she went onto her back. “What?”

“My turn. My way. Stay where I put you, woman.” Holding one palm on her belly, he leaned over and kissed her, slowly slipping his tongue between her lips and sliding it over her teeth and then to the top of her mouth, exploring her bit by bit, tasting her.

~*~

Allie tried to be still and let Jonas have his turn. She had been a little abrupt and greedy earlier and he deserved to have fun too. Slow and boring must be his usual, judging by how he had been handling her before, and how he was handling her now.

He began to make circles with heel of his hand on her belly. Slowly, he widened them until the tips of his fingers brushed her right breast. He cupped her breast and gently kneaded it as he licked at her lips. He pulled away from her lips and planted a series of tiny kisses around her face, including her eyelids and the tip of her nose, and then moved to her ear. He traced her ear with his tongue as he moved his hand to her left breast and massaged it gently. The nipple hardened under his palm as he played there, flattening his hand over her breast and caressing the tip lightly with the center of his palm. He breathed heavily into her ear and caught the lobe between his teeth and sucked it into his mouth.

She gasped and rose up off the bed a little. He sucked on her earlobe for a little bit and then cupped her face with his hand and turned her so that he could do the other ear too. “Balance in everything,” he whispered.

He kissed a spot under her chin, stroked a single finger down and then licked a stripe down her throat following the path of his finger, which made her shiver. He kissed his way over to her left breast and took the pebbled peak into his mouth and suckled her, lapping generously with his tongue. Her hands came up and tangled in his hair and she shifted up a little, urging him on. He gave a last suck and left off with a kiss on the tip of her nipple before moving over to the right breast and lavishing it as well.

No one had ever taken this much time to just touch her. Allie shivered as his lips sucked at a spot on her belly and then again a little lower. He hands moved everywhere, touching and smoothing and rubbing. She felt… she didn’t know how she felt. She loosened her grip on Jonas’ hair, but left her fingers tangled in the silky strands as he kissed and licked her belly and abdomen. She had to let go of him as he moved suddenly to kneel between her legs.

He slid his hands along her thighs, parting her. She blushed under his intense look and tried to close her legs. “Don’t hide. You don’t need to hide from me, sweetling, let me look at you.” He stroked along her thighs to her knees.

Allie felt herself growing hot as he looked at her, his fingers lightly touching and stroking along the outside of her sex, tangling in the curls there. He pushed at her thighs, making her widen her legs more. She felt his warm breath on her. She expected him to move up and lie atop her and take her. Instead, he slid back towards the end of the bed. Allie looked at him in confusion as he smiled up at her.

“My turn,” he reminded her, pushing her knees apart as she started to close her legs again. He stroked along her outer lips and then slid around to touch her where she was the most sensitive. She bucked up, surprised at the touch. She didn’t think men did this. The one woman she had taken briefly to her bed had fumbled around trying to pleasure Allie with her hand, but had just ended up scratching her and annoying her. Jonas was most certainly not annoying her.

Jonas stroked her, touching her lightly, moving his fingers in no pattern she could decipher. She began to writhe on the bed, gripping the blankets in her fists. Then Jonas moved up and put his mouth to her and she shouted his name and grabbed at his head, uncertain if she meant to push him away or pull him closer. He touched his tongue to the places he had been exploring with his fingers.

Then he closed his lips over her clit and began to suck and Allie went completely to pieces. She moaned out his name, bucking up against his mouth as he brought her quickly up higher than she had been earlier when she had been riding him so hard. She whimpered and tangled her hands in his hair again, throbbing as he made her come.

When she opened her eyes and looked down at him, he gave her a sweet smile. “Was that good?”

“I’m keeping you. I don’t care what the law says, I’m keeping you. You are never leaving this bed, Jonas Quinn.”

He stroked her thighs and chuckled at her. Then he slowly crawled up and held himself over her. “Come up and kiss me,” he whispered.

Hesitantly, she leaned up and touched her lips to his, tasting her own musk for the first time. He slowly lowered himself down, his hard cock sliding across her sex. She groaned at the feel of the hot flesh against her and lifted her legs to wrap them around his waist. He drew himself back up, again dragging his length across her throbbing clit. He did it over and over, bringing her up again on the roller coaster. Allie wrapped her arms around his neck and held on, her eyes locked on Jonas’ as he moved against her.

Jonas bent his head and kissed her again, and his tongue moved inside her mouth just as his cock teased at her, darting in and then pulling back. She expected him to drive hard now, but instead, he slid into her slowly, little by little.

~*~

He was holding back, trying to savor this. She had her head tilted and was looking at him a little oddly as he slowly withdrew and then just as slowly sank back into her. He knew this was not what she had been expecting, based on every reaction she had so far to his touches. Had no one ever taken the time to love this beautiful creature properly?

“What?” Allie asked.

“Huh?”

“What did you just say?”

Crap. Had he said that out loud? He hadn’t meant to. Oh well, if she’d heard, she’d heard. “Hasn’t anyone ever taken their time with you, Allie?” He kissed her again and then stroked her cheek. She blinked and he saw wetness in her eyes.

“Not until today,” she whispered.

He went as slowly as he could, pumping in and out of her as he stroked her clit with his fingers, rubbing at her until she cried out softly and pressed against him, her hands clinging to his arm as he braced himself over her. He slid his arm under her and pulled her up against him, holding her as she shuddered and whimpered through a climax.

He kissed her face and said, “I need to finish, sweetling.”

She nodded and cupped his face, kissing his lips. He thrust against her hard, quickening the pace as he came to his end and poured into her. Still inside her, he rolled to the side, dragging her along with him, holding her tightly as he shuddered through several aftershocks. Allie buried her face against his chest, clinging to him.

“Still with me?” Jonas whispered.

“Yes,” Allie mumbled against his armpit.

“I’m getting cold now; can we get under the blankets? Or I’ll get dressed and go, whichever you want me to do.” Jonas hoped she didn’t make him go. Sometimes women did.

Allie rolled away from him and stood up. He stared at her for a minute. Then she waved a hand at him, “Well, get up and under, you big goof, I’m getting chilled too.”

Oh. He found the edge of the blankets and wriggled under, holding them up so she could scoot in beside him. She curled against him and let out a sigh. “I could get used to this.”

He kissed her forehead as she snuggled down. “Me too.”

“Goodnight, Jonas.”

“Goodnight, Allie.”

 

**November**  
“Harder,” Cam breathed out through his teeth as John bent over his back. His wrists were crossed and he rested most of his weight on his elbows as he rocked forward with each of John’s thrusts. “I know you can go harder than… that… _keri_ ,” he grunted as John reared up again and slammed into him.

“Gonna… kill me… one day.”

Cam laughed as his head dropped down, “Ah, no, John, I love you too much.”

John’s hand swept up Cam’s side, caressing him, an oddly soft movement given how hard he was taking him. His hands slid back to Cam's hips and he pressed his fingertips in as he gripped Cam’s firmly and yanked him back to meet each thrust. “Hurt?”

“Hell no,” Cameron moved with his _keri_ as John slowed the pace and began to breathe more heavily, thrusts becoming sharper, shallower, and quicker. He had begun to swear in a steady stream of indecipherable curses under his breath. This was what Cam wanted; this was how he wanted his _keri_. “I love you like this. Let go, John. I want to hear you let go.” He would have enjoyed the sight of it as well; seeing John lose it and come apart, but that would have meant sacrificing this position and Cam loved being on his knees and elbows, feeling John go as deeply as he could.

He could tell by the way John’s thighs were trembling where they pressed against his that John was close to finishing. Cam leaned forward suddenly, pulling away from John just as he was drawing out. Then Cam shoved backwards to meet John’s next forward thrust. “Sonofab…” John shouted as he came, pouring into Cam as he collapsed across his back.

When John rolled over, he wrapped his arms around Cam’s middle and took him over with him. Cam laughed and squirmed away, flopping back onto his belly and smiling over at his exhausted _keri_. “You okay, John?”

“I’m dead. Get Lorne to do the paperwork. I’ll just stay here and decompose,” John tossed an arm over his eyes and went limp on the mattress.

“No time. Work to do,” Cam said as he slapped John’s bare belly and then leaned over to kiss his shoulder. “We could go do some now, in fact. I left stuff on my desk.” He moved as if to get out of the bed. 

John caught his hand and tugged him back. “Oh, shut the hell up. I’ll cuddle with you, you manipulative bastard.” John held his arm up and Cam happily scooted over and wrapped himself around John, one arm over his chest, one leg over both of John's thighs. He might protest, loudly and vehemently, but John really had become much, much better at the whole affection thing over the past year and a half. It didn't take much to get a snuggle or hug out of him these days. Sometimes, John even let Cam hold him through the whole night.

Cam clasped John’s chin and pulled his face in for a kiss, with lots of slow and lazy tongue. “Love you,” Cam whispered as he pulled away. Sleep was claiming him quickly. He yawned and closed his eyes, wondering if tonight might be one of the nights when John would say something in reply. 

He had almost drifted off when he felt a soft kiss press against his forehead. “I love you too, Cameron.”

Happy and satisfied, Cam Mitchell went to sleep with a goofy smile on his face.

  


 **December**  
The infirmary was thankfully quiet, which was a very good thing in Evan’s book. Emergencies were a drain on resources. They couldn’t afford too many emergencies. He walked over to the incubator unit and pressed his hand to the glass. They had three months to go before they would find out if everything was really okay with the baby. The configuration of the device was such that Carson couldn’t do any conclusive tests at all. They had to rely on the small readout screen on the side of the unit, which really didn’t tell them anything apart from the fact that the unit was functioning and the life form inside was still alive.

It grated on Evan a little that his child was, in essence, a science experiment. But this unit had saved David’s life as well as the baby’s, so he couldn’t really protest too much. Sheppard had tried finding information about it, coaxing and battering his way through the city’s database and trying to get the city to tell him something, but the city didn’t have anything to offer. Eventually, they concluded that the unit must have been a personal experiment of one of the Ancients, and therefore off the city’s grid. They only had the one working unit; they had been unable to locate any others. Nor had they found the plans or blueprints for this one. Frothing at the bit, McKay and Zelenka couldn’t wait to get their hands on the hardware to figure out how it worked and reverse engineer another one.

But the Engineering Department would have to wait until Lorne and Parrish’s baby was ready to come out of it.

“I thought you were going home?” Mitchell asked, coming up behind Evan.

Evan patted the machine lightly. “I am. Just stopping in to say hi. You?”

“John woke up with a headache, bad enough to complain about, so I dragged him to CB. I meant to ask you something personal, if you don’t mind.” Cam looked around; as if he were making sure they were alone. They were safely out of hearing range of the people at the other side of the infirmary.

“What’s up?”

Cam rolled his shoulders and looked a little uncomfortable. “I heard you went back on the inhibitors?”

“Had to do it; Beckett was able to preserve the faux fallopian and the egg sac, David is still fertile. With things the way they are, Beckett isn’t too keen on removing it.” Evan had not been happy about the doctor’s decision when he had learned about it. It was not what they had planned at all. It was still too dangerous for David to carry, it would kill him. 

But Beckett’s arguments for leaving everything in place had been sound: First; they didn’t know if this baby was okay. Second; they had a fertility crisis on their hands, and so sterilizing one of their rare _keri_ was not really an option Beckett wanted to consider. Third; there was no way to tell how David’s body would react to the complete removal of the egg sac and the change in hormones that would bring, it was a crap shoot and only done in extreme cases. Some _keri_ were fine after a complete removal, others had serious complications.

“How are you doing with the inhibitors, any side effects?” Mitchell asked.

Evan shrugged. “The headaches and the sleeplessness are back, along with the fatigue and drop in libido. Nothing I wasn’t used to from before and the dosage levels are low enough now that it isn’t too bad yet. How are you coping with them?”

Mitchell looked away towards John, sitting on a gurney across the infirmary from them with his head in his hands, waiting for the pain medication to kick in. “I’m not on them, that’s actually why I was asking, I’m thinking about starting.”

“But…” Evan was confused, this was news to him. John had told him they were not planning on children any time soon. He had assumed that meant Cam was already on the same drug regimen he was taking. Maybe John hadn’t told him everything. Concerned for his friend he asked, “Is John okay, is there something wrong?”

“No, no. He’s fine. We just… I promised him… I don’t… He usually…” Mitchell was actually blushing as he stammered and stared at the ceiling. He cut his hands through the air as he blurted out, “Oh for… we do it backwards.”

Tilting his head and staring, Evan tried to process this. Backwards? “Oh. Oh! You mean you let John…? Wait, how can you possibly… is that enough? The science teachers said that wasn’t enough, all the hormones and drive and instinct and stuff. They warned us not to do it that way.”

“It’s enough, usually,” Cam shrugged. “I promised him I wouldn’t make him carry. Without the drugs, this is the only way I can keep that promise. Except total abstinence, and I can’t handle that, I can’t be in the same room with him for any extended period of time without getting all worked up.”

Evan understood that much. He wouldn’t be able to sleep next to David every night and be unable to touch him. It was why he put up with the torture of the contraceptives. He had always had a suspicion that the contraceptives they used had been deliberately designed by the Jirante to be painful as a deterrent to anyone actually using them for any length of time.

He was learning a little more about his friends right now that he was entirely comfortable with knowing.

“I’ll eventually have to go on them too, I guess. We’re gonna run out of condoms for the times when I really need to… you know.”

“Uh huh.” Way too much knowledge, Evan decided. Why were they having this conversation?

But it started him thinking. Would he be able to let David be in control? Would sex that way really be enough to satisfy the demands of the _panor_ hormones? If it meant stopping the drugs; maybe a little discomfort and sexual frustration might be worth the exchange for sleeping through the night and not living with constant headaches, and the return of his sex drive.

“Is it really enough?” Evan caught Cam’s sleeve and found himself whispering the question as Cam started to turn away.

Mitchell nodded and shrugged. “It has been for me. Everyone is different though. I’ll see you later.”

He watched his friend leave, his mind in turmoil. His arm brushed the incubator unit and he stared down at the blinking lights on the side of it. It might be worth it. He’d lived this long with one kind of pain on a daily basis, surely he could adapt to a different set of discomforts?

It wasn’t as if he had to worry about getting pregnant.

~*~

“It’s dark outside. You’re pretty late tonight,” David remarked as Evan finally arrived at their quarters. He went straight to the bathroom to take care of the pressing problem he had finally been driven to return to their quarters to resolve.

Personal issue taken care of, Evan wearily dropped into a chair and started undoing his boots. “I was walking, I guess I lost track of the time. Sorry, were you waiting up for me?”

Crossing the room, David leaned against him, fussing with the strands of his hair after kissing Evan’s forehead. “No. I had dinner with the crew from Hydroponics, after we ate they dragged me to TV Night at the South Rec Hall to watch an _I Love Lucy_ marathon. I just got in. What were you thinking about?”

“How do you know I was thinking about something?” Evan kicked off his other boot and tugged David down across his lap and kissed him properly.

Playing with Evan's hair, David replied, “Because you only lose track of time when you’re thinking too hard, so fess up, what was it?”

He hugged him close before letting him go when David started to wriggle, impatient for an answer to his question. “I had a little chat with Mitchell today.”

“Let me guess, he dumped more of John’s work on you?”

Laughing at David’s indignant huff on his behalf, Evan shook his head. “No, Marks is the lucky one there. I saw Cam in the infirmary when I was visiting Little T.”

“Hate that name, please stop,” David sang in a high pitched voice as he rolled his eyes.

“No, I like it for now. Anyway, it was an interesting chat and I was thinking about the things he said to me.” Evan tilted his head back against the chair and closed his eyes. He was so fucking tired. Between the long hours of desk work and helping out Sciences using his gene and taking some of the strain off Sheppard when he could and the constant headache from the inhibitors, he was worn out.

A minute later, a cool damp cloth pressed over his eyes and forehead and David’s fingers were at his temples, gently kneading. “Thanks,” Evan whispered.

“I wish I could do more.”

Could he? Evan was back to thinking the thoughts that had carried him all over the city tonight. Could Evan set aside a lifetime of _panor_ dominance and the need to take and let David be in control? He was still a human being, for crying out loud; surely he could control such a base instinct?

“Uhm, maybe you can, I dunno,” the cloth was over his eyes, which was good; he didn’t think he could say this looking David in the face. This was ridiculous, it was David, how could he possibly be embarrassed about this? Annoyed at himself, he tore the wash cloth from his face and sat up. “Kiss me,” he demanded gruffly.

A puzzled look on his face, David leaned over and kissed him. Evan forced himself to leave his hands at his sides and let David kiss him. Sensing that something was wrong, David stopped and asked, “What’s going on, Ev? Talk to me.”

He let out a heavy sigh. “Mitchell isn’t on the contraceptives; he’s not taking any inhibitors.”

David took a few steps over to sit on the edge of the sofa. “Why should he be?”

He was sharing one of John’s confidences, but given the way this conversation was going, Evan figured it didn’t much matter. He was sure his _keri_ wouldn’t tell anyone else about this. “He promised John he wouldn’t knock him up, I knew that, John told me a long time ago. But I thought Mitchell had been on the inhibitors all this time. I wondered at his stamina, honestly I was getting a little jealous. I was beginning to wonder if he was even human. At least now I know why he doesn’t fall asleep at his desk like I do some days.”

“Risky practice. It goes against every instinct for a _panor_ to pull out, at least that’s what the science teachers taught us. They said it really couldn’t be done. They told us not to try.”

Evan had the same textbooks in school. “Mine too. And yeah, I couldn’t stop at the end, I tried a few times, it doesn’t work. Definitely not a reliable means of preventing pregnancy.”

“Then how?”

“They’re doing it backwards, according to Cam.”

David was shaking his head. “It doesn’t work like that. There isn’t enough of a chemical bond achieved that way to satisfy the _panor_.”

“Maybe that’s only what we’ve been taught to believe.”

“Surely word would have gotten out if it was otherwise.” David stood and started to pace a little, obviously mulling over the radical idea Evan had presented to him.

“Male-male homosexual pairings made up a little less than thirty percent of all _keri_ and _panor_ bonds. But think about it, David, if the _keri_ in those bonds knew that there was a way to prevent contraception? If they could have relations with their _panor’eten_ without the risk of conception and without being detected and prosecuted for breaking the law, wouldn’t they do it? That would take thirty percent of the fertile population out of the breeding pool.”

David stopped and stared at Evan. “The laws were made to ensure contraception. Were we lied to?”

“I don’t know. It isn’t as if anyone who figured this out on their own was going to come forward and admit they found a way around the law. And it’s such a simple thing really; just a change of position, to make such a difference.”

“If it’s true at all. It goes against everything we were taught. I have a lot of doubts about this, Evan.”

He slumped back in the chair. “So do I, but apparently it has been working for Mitchell and Sheppard so far.”

“Are you even comfortable doing it that way?”

“I don’t know, I never tried, you were my first and only, David.”

“Me either. And you know you were my first. Do you want to try? I’m game if you are.”

He was too wiped out to even think about trying to take David tonight, another side effect of the damned drugs. But he could certainly make an attempt to be an actively submissive partner for once. “We won’t know until we give it a go, and I’ll admit I’ve always been curious.” He held a hand out to David, squeezing it as his _keri_ took it.

“It goes against everything we were taught in school.”

Evan smirked as David hauled him up from the chair. “All the more reason to try. Fuck the establishment!”

“So, how do you want to do this?” David asked as they went into the bedroom.

“I dunno. You’re in charge. You tell me.” Nothing was raging in his head, he didn’t have any overwhelming desire to throw David down and have him at the moment. It was probably a good time for this experiment.

“Right. Okay. I want to see skin, so get out of that uniform.”

Easy enough. Evan started undoing the buttons on his shirt. He paused when he noticed that David was sprawled out on the bed, watching him. Oh, right, he did that a lot didn’t he? Huh. He turned towards the bed a bit more so David could see better and made his movements a little more deliberate. He wasn’t bold enough to do a striptease, but he didn’t rush either.

He let the shirt slide down his arms and fall to the floor and then wrestled his t-shirt over his head, dropping it beside his uniform shirt. He undid the buckle of his belt and slowly tugged it through the loops. He held it in his palm, looked at it for a moment and then extended his hand to David, “Do you want this? It’s up to you.”

“I’m not quite ready to go there. Don’t be an ass; I’m not doing anything to you that you haven’t already done to me.”

Evan laughed and dropped the belt. “Just checking. I could take it, you know, if you ever wanted to.” He was partially teasing, he knew David wouldn’t want to do anything rough; they’d discussed it in the past. Pain was not something either of them enjoyed. But if it would give David some measure of control, Evan could deal with it.

“Never,” David shook his head and Evan let the subject drop. He undid his fly and shimmied out of his trousers, kicking them aside. He took a step towards the bed, but David held a hand up to stop him and then pointed. “Those too. Naked. I want it all.”

He skimmed the boxers off and kicked them aside. David crooked a finger and Evan walked to the side of the bed and stood in the spot that David pointed to. “Kiss,” his _keri_ demanded.

Bracing his knuckles on the mattress, Evan bent down and kissed David tenderly. “I love you,” he whispered near David’s ear before he stood up.

~*~

David was shaking inside. This was so far outside his comfort zone, he was sure everything he was doing was wrong. But Evan wouldn’t have brought it up if he hadn’t already decided he wanted to try this. His _panor_ was like that. Evan didn’t think out loud, he kept everything inside as he considered and deciphered and let it ruminate. Only when he was decided or when he needed more information would he speak about something.

So, when Evan had casually brought the subject up, David had been terrified. Like every other _keri_ , he had been conditioned throughout his entire life to basically bend over and take whatever his _panor_ had to give him. Now Evan was suddenly flipping it around. It went against everything David had impressed upon him through his life. _Panor_ males simply did not receive, it wasn’t done. There was no purpose to it. Sex without purpose was wrong; that had been pounded into the heads of every school child after the plagues. Marriages had been abolished because of it. In some parts of the world, sex outside the bond had been declared illegal.

And now Evan was asking him to go against what he knew.

His _panor’eten_ lived in constant pain every day because of the drugs he took to protect David. How could David refuse him anything?

But how did he go about this? He had started simply enough by mimicking Evan’s usual stare as he would lounge on the bed and watch David undress. When Evan had offered him the belt, David’s stomach had turned. He knew some people liked that sort of thing. Pain play skirted the very edge of the law; it was illegal to do harm to a _keri_. But some _panor_ liked it. David was grateful his _panor’eten_ did not.

He slid off the bed and pulled his shirt over his head, throwing it over by Evan’s discarded clothing. He quickly stripped out of his trousers. He patted the bed. “Come up here.”

“How do you want me?”

Crap. What next? “On your side.” Evan looked sleepy; he seemed to be struggling to keep his eyes open. Maybe this wasn’t the night to try this. “Ev, maybe we should do this another time, you look beat.”

“Better this way, I won’t be so demanding,” Evan replied as he crawled across the bed and dropped down.

That made sense. He felt a little guilty that he was so happy to be getting sex tonight. It had been a while, and he missed his lover. David stretched out on the bed beside him. He kissed Evan again, smiling as he opened his mouth and let David explore with his tongue. Evan’s hand slid over David’s waist and his fingers dipped down into the waistband of his shorts. He gasped as Evan reached in and took hold of him, stroking lightly. “That feels good.”

“You want me to suck you?” Evan asked lazily as he looked up at David.

“Yeah. Oh, yeah, that would be good,” with a little help from Evan, David wriggled out of his briefs and gasped again as Evan bent over him and began to lick at his cock. This wasn’t too weird; they did this from time to time. David idly played with Evan’s hair as he bobbed up and down, sucking him.

When Evan suddenly stopped, just as David was really beginning to appreciate it, David hissed in frustration and clenched his hand on Evan’s head. Evan chuckled. “Do you want to finish like this?”

“Oh, right, no.” David leaned over to reach the nightstand and pulled out the tube of lubricant they kept in the drawer. “Roll over, Ev.” Evan immediately flopped over onto his belly with his chin propped on his crossed arms.

Kneeling up, he slicked his fingers and then dripped a puddle of the lube at the top of Evan’s crack. “Is that half the tube? It feels like half the tube.” Evan drawled. There was amusement on his face as he looked back at David.

“I don’t want it to hurt. You know lube makes it easier,” David muttered as he started smoothing the slippery gel down and around Evan’s hole. Evan grunted as David stuck the tip of one slicked finger in. “Did I hurt you?”

“No, just surprised me. Keep going, baby, I’m fine. It takes a lot to hurt me.” Evan had his cheek resting on his folded arms. David wondered how his _panor’eten_ could be so calm when he was a nervous wreck over this.

“That feels good,” Evan moaned as David dipped his finger deeper and tried to spread the gel around a little in the tight space.

“Gross question.”

“What?”

“Did you go before? This might be uncomfortable if you didn’t.”

Chuckling, Evan replied, “I know. I went. Keep going.”

Of course he had, Evan was a plan maker, he’d been prepared for this eventuality before he even brought it up to David. He added another finger. Evan sighed and rocked a little with the motion as David slowly moved in and out, stretching him.

His _panor’eten_ didn’t seem to be in great distress over this so far; maybe it would be all right.

~*~

  


Evan forced himself to be calm. It had been hard not telling David what to do, a little frustrating, in fact. The surge of frustration had roused him a little; he was more awake than he had been when they came into the bedroom. He had finally started sucking David’s cock just to keep his mouth full so he couldn’t say what was going through his head. He reminded himself that he had sprung this on David; this was completely out of the blue. His _keri_ surely needed a little time to adjust.

The first finger in his ass felt weird. Not painful, but not particularly exciting, just a little strange and unfamiliar. When the doctor did this, there was cold lube and a thick latex glove involved. Right now, there was a lot of slick and no friction. When David added the second finger, it was better, the stretching felt oddly good. The sawing motion was good too. He moved a little with it, rubbing against the bed to see if his cock was going to get in on the play at all tonight. So far, not a twitch, there was no interest from the nether regions. Fucking inhibitors.

David pulled his fingers out and moved to add a third. Now things were getting interesting. Evan glanced back and smiled at the intense concentration on David’s face. His poor _keri_.

“This isn’t a test, David. You can’t screw anything up,” Evan tried to reassure him.

“I know. I just don’t want to hurt you.”

Evan bit his arm to keep from barking at him. He raised his hips a little and pushed back; hoping David would take the hint. When he continued to work with his fingers, Evan looked over and said, “I think I’m okay there.”

With a grim and determined look, David pulled his hand away and moved to kneel behind Evan. The tip of his cock touched him and Evan forced himself to relax. New wasn’t bad. New was good. If this was good, they could keep doing this and then the fucking drugs could stop. When David pushed forward and in, it burned. Evan bit down on his arm to muffle his whine about the pain.

He’d wanted friction, he was getting friction. He wanted to scramble away from the intrusion. This wasn’t going to work, David was too big, he couldn’t take it. Damn, David wasn’t a little guy, his cock was bigger than Evan’s, how in the hell had he thought he could do this?

David pulled back and it burned again and Evan couldn’t keep the whimper from slipping out. David immediately went still and then pulled completely out of him. “I’m hurting you.”

“Tight. Burns.”

“You should have said so.” There was a squelching noise and Evan felt the coolness of the lubricating gel as David pushed it inside him with his fingers.

He sagged with relief at the touch and gave a sigh. “Better. That’s better. Not burning anymore.”

David added more lube with his third finger. “Stubborn _panor_ , this isn’t supposed to hurt.” He slapped Evan’s ass lightly with his free hand.

He pressed his fingers deeper this time and Evan bucked a little as he hit a sensitive spot. “That feels good,” he groaned.

“It should. Now, are you really ready this time?”

“I think so.” David reached around, feeling for Evan’s cock. As he grasped the soft shaft, Evan grunted, “Not happening tonight, love. Don’t waste the effort.”

David let go of Evan’s cock and lined himself up at his ass again. When he pressed forward, the burn was minimal and only mildly uncomfortable as David went deeper than his fingers had reached. “Better?”

“Much.”

It felt odd. And when David grunted and pushed in further, Evan felt very tight and full. He assumed this was what David felt when he took him, since their physiology wasn’t that different down there. Evan lacked the faux fallopian connection to an egg sac, but otherwise, the plumbing was pretty much the same. When David pulled out and then pushed slowly back in, Evan moaned in pleasure. That time it felt good. With each successive in and out, it felt better. He began to rock in time with David’s movements.

The guilt Evan had started to feel about what he’d been putting his _keri_ through all these years started to ebb away as David grasped his hips tightly and began to move with more purpose. “Okay?”

“Feels good, don’t stop.”

“I have no intention of doing so,” David replied, pausing breathily between each word.

~*~

If he never did this again, it was something he would never forget. The feel of Evan under and around him, the sound of his low moans of pleasure with each thrust - quite different than the sounds Evan made when he was fucking David - were so heady he felt drunk on it.

Evan was so tight, his ass clenching around David’s cock like a latex glove. The friction on his cock was almost painful as he went on driving inside Ev. He forced himself to open his eyes and look at Evan, lying with his chin on his arms, his back arched so beautifully as he kept his ass up to meet David. David slid his hands up Evan’s thighs and over his ass, needing to touch that arc, smoothing his hands over the skin of Evan’s back. He pumped in and out, taking what his _panor’eten_ had offered.

He checked again, but Evan knew his own body, he was still soft. In the past two years, the higher doses of the drugs had done that to him; and as a result had stolen a large chunk of their intimacy from them as Evan was able to perform less and less.

David felt that he was getting close to the end. He pressed closer to Evan, running his hands up his sides and clasping them to his hips again as he thrust more quickly, driven to finish. It seems some instincts had not been destroyed by the Jirante’s meddling with the male physiology. David screamed in pleasure as he came.

As soon as David let go of his hips and pulled out, Evan slid to the mattress in a boneless sprawl.

Flopping beside him, David caressed his cheek. “Are you okay?’

Evan opened his eyes about halfway and moaned, “Oh. My. God.”

Running his hand up and down Evan’s arm David chewed his lip. “Is that good or bad? More words, Evan, I need more words.”

“I am so getting off those fucking drugs.”

Relieved, David leaned in and kissed him. “Not broken then?”

“Cam Mitchell is a goddamned genius.”

That made David laugh heartily as the last of his tension melted away. Evan fumbled around with one arm until he caught David behind the head and pulled him close. He yawned and said, “I might drag him into a supply closet and blow him in gratitude.”

“John might have something to say about that.”

“I’ll do him too. You come and watch. We’ll have an orgy to celebrate.”

Rubbing Evan’s head, David laughed again and pressed a kiss to his forehead. “You’re goofy, you need sleep.”

“Yeah. Love you.”

“I love you too.”

As Evan relaxed, sagging as sleep claimed him; he mumbled inexplicably, “So worth it.”


	3. Census

**January**  
Yawning widely enough to cause his jaw to crack, Evan stretched and gave a heavy sigh. He had been trying to get through a stack of personnel profiles, but after reading the same report three times and nearly assigning a former veterinarian to the Civilian Security Patrol in error, he called it a day. There was productivity, and then there was stupidity and counter-productivity. He had reached “menace to himself and others” levels of counter-productivity.

He stopped at Sheppard’s office to tell him he was knocking off, but left after seeing John wasn’t in much better shape. Sheppard was sitting at his desk with his chin in his hand, snoring lightly. If they did not have a paper shortage, and had not converted everything over to electronic files, Lorne was certain the desk would have been a complete mess of files and papers.

“You need to collect your _keri_ and take him home, he’s drooling on his keyboard,” Evan said as he poked his head into Mitchell’s office.

Looking up from the blueprints in his hand, Cam sighed. “Again?”

Moving completely inside, Evan let the door shut behind him. “McKay ran him ragged in the chair this afternoon. Have you given any more thought to shifting his desk workload around? He’s doing so much interfacing with the city these days he doesn’t have the time or energy for the day to day military stuff anymore.”

Mitchell sighed. “You know he’ll balk if I take anything away from him. I really want to put him in charge of all the Science Departments, but I think it would shake things up far too much. In the meantime, yeah, I think we need to assign him someone to lighten the paperwork load. You just have too much on your own plate to cover for him anymore, Ev. Who do you think would make a better fit, Davis, Caldwell or Marks?”

“Oh God, not Caldwell. John would shoot him inside a week. And you need Davis right where he is, you’re barely treading water as it is yourself… sir.”

“Stop calling me sir. So, Marks?”

“That would be my decision, were I the one making it.”

“Draw me up a list of what John has been letting slide, we’ll toss that over to Marks to start with, see how he fields it. If he can handle it, we’ll bring him in as a full time attaché up here.”

“I’ll get that done tomorrow, sir.”

“Stop sir-ring me.”

“Yes sir,” Evan yawned, “If there’s nothing else, I’ve had to redo more work than I’ve accomplished in the last hour, I’d like to go to the greenhouse to collect David and go home.”

“Go. I’m a few steps behind you.” Cam stood up and leaned forward over his desk to see through the glass wall between his and John’s offices. He shook his head as he saw that John was tilted precariously in his chair. “I need to go and catch him before he falls over.”

~*~

  


Carson sighed and looked at the summary sheet again. Not liking the numbers on the graph, he clicked over to a different screen and started to tab through the individual patient results. He knew there would be no difference, but it made him feel better to check.

“That is not a happy face I see,” Cam Mitchell said as he leaned on the door frame of Beckett’s office.

“This is not a happy man you see,” he replied and scrubbed his hands over his face holding them before his mouth and blowing into them as he stared at the screen. “The results are in on the city-wide blood work.”

Cam moved inside and flopped into the chair before Beckett’s desk, holding his tablet across his knees. “Give it to me, Doc, how bad?”

“Discounting the Athosians and other Pegasus natives, the current census is eleven thousand, four hundred and sixty three humans living in the city. Eight hundred and sixty one _keri_ , two thousand nine hundred and seventy eight _panor_. Forty three of those _keri_ are currently unbonded. Of those forty three, only seven are capable of bearing children.”

Lips pressed together, Cam frowned and nodded. “How many new pregnancies?” He knew the number of births had numbered five since E Day, as they were calling the day of the first wave of evacuations from Earth. Only five of the _keri_ that had come through had been carrying at the time. Sam Carter-O’Neill’s daughter, Hope, had been the first child born on Atlantis after E Day.

“Three, and that is accounting for David Parrish-Lorne’s situation. The other two patients I am currently treating are Chuck Campbell from Gate Operations and Pei Guntz from Geology. I’m concerned, Cameron, very concerned. The _keri_ conception rate has always been low, even within successfully bonded pairs once the initial bonding phase has past. As you know most conceptions happen within the first few months of bonding. Most couples only produce one or two offspring, sometimes three, but rarely four.”

Cam shifted a little in his chair. He had come down here because he knew the census result was due to hit CB’s desk today and he wanted the interpreted version of the information from someone he trusted to give him the unvarnished truth. “Most conceptions happen within the first year, I know. High hormone and chemical levels at the start, more impulse to breed, yadda, yadda, yadda with an upsurge after weaning the first child.”

“Aye, but sad to say, I expected to see more miscarriages. It’s a fact of the beast; _keri_ miscarry nearly half of the time, and the instances are higher in males, it’s a problem the Jirante were well aware of and couldn’t fix. But I’m not even seeing that. I’ve not seen one new conception since E Day. That isn’t to say there aren’t any, but no one has come to Medical for a diagnosis.”

Cam sat up straight. “That’s almost four months! No _panor’eten_ could miss the symptoms that long, or would let their _keri_ go that long without coming in for a checkup, no way.”

“I know, lad, it seems we’re in more dire straits than I had first thought. Even the breeding pairs we have are not breeding.”

Disturbed by the news, Cam closed his eyes and tilted his head back and spoke at the ceiling. “Any idea what the cause is?”

“It will mean another round of tests, every _keri_ and _panor_ in the city will need to be tested in order to begin figuring that out.”

“ _Panor_ too?”

“Of course. The problem might not lie with the _keri_ at all, but since the pool is smaller, we’ll start there.”

Cam felt his knee jostling up and down, a sign of his nerves being stretched to the limit. “So the last reported pregnancies were Parrish, Campbell and Guntz, what do they have in common?”

“All were part of the original Expedition and thus were here before E Day, as were their _panor_.”

“Wait, do you know who Chuck’s _panor_ is?” It was a secret Chuck was being extremely tight lipped about, and Cam had tried wheedling the info out of the tech several times but failed.

Beckett waved a hand, “No, but we still have doctor-patient confidentiality, Cameron, do not ask me to tell you things like that.” They sat in silence for a few minutes, each lost in thought.

Carson was reading from his screen when something caught his attention. “I also got the final results back on the Ancient Gene tests. Those numbers are far more encouraging. Hhhmm, how interesting! It seems we’ve been missing a correlation.” Carson began clicking keys on his computer as he leaned closer to the screen.

“Care to let me in on it? I could bear to hear something good, but I’ll take interesting,” Cam drawled when Carson ignored him too long.

Smiling, Carson looked over at Mitchell. “Of the civilians that came in, we identified an additional five hundred and fifty eight gene carriers. But here’s the interesting part, we ran the same tests on everyone, remember. Ninety percent of the _keri_ and _panor_ possess the Ancient gene.”

“So…”

“Based on this, I would hypothesize that there is a direct correlation between the population that responded positively to the Jirante procedures as children and the population of Ancient Gene carriers.”

Cam shrugged, not seeing how that could help them now with their current crises. “Will it really make a difference?”

“It narrows the field for our fertility researchers considerably.”

They fell silent again; Carson began composing a message to everyone on the Conservation Project and sent it off with a copy of the data.

Mitchell closed his eyes and tried to get Atlantis to turn the lights off for him. John had been trying to convince the city to allow other gene carriers to access systems the way he did. It was apparently very much like banging his head against a brick wall, according to John. The city had finally loosened security enough to allow Lorne, Beckett and Miko Kusanagi to initialize and utilize key systems. Lorne could even use the chair almost as well as John now, and John insisted that had been a major coup.

_‘Off! C’mon city, you like me. John loves me and you love John, so by association, you just have to love me. Just turn off the lights, even a few flickers would suffice.’_ To Cameron’s astonishment, the overhead lights flashed on and off four times. “Thank you!” he called at the ceiling as he sat up and smiled at a befuddled Carson.

“I did that!” Cam jerked a thumb at the lights and then at his chest. “The city listened to me, CB.”

Nodding slightly and looking back at his screen, Carson opened the desk drawer beside him and reached in. He extracted an object and tossed it at Cam. “Get her to show you where that goes. Then I’ll be impressed. No cheating and asking John to do it, either.”

Scowling at the doctor’s suspicion that he would possibly cheat like that, Cam turned it over in his hands. It had no power source so there was nothing to initialize with his mind, Cam had mastered that particular utilization of the gene long ago. It was obviously a component of something, rather than an entire machine.

“Can I take it with me?”

Beckett waved a hand in dismissal.

“Cool. If you have no other bad news to share with me, I’ll see ya later, CB.”

~*~

  


Over a late dinner in their quarters, Cam told John what CB had told him. John sighed and sat back, staring across the table at Cam as Mitchell poked at his spaghetti. He was quiet and thoughtful for a long time. “In the light of this development, I really can’t hold you to your promise, Cameron.”

“I had a feeling that was going to be your first response. You don’t have to be a martyr for the cause, John.”

John leaned forward and began to count on his fingers, “Cameron, there were only nine _keri_ with the Expedition before E Day. “Chuck, David and Pei have all done their duty. Krackow and Duranti are your mom’s age and too old to have babies. Davis and Markham are sterile. That leaves Kate Heightmeyer and me for CB’s experimental purposes. Heightmeyer has issues with people touching her, her issues have issues. Ethically, I can’t continue to hold out because of my personal preferences and choices, now can I? And I’m still chock-full of early bonding hormones.”

Dropping his head in his hands, John gave a groan and a frustrated kick at the leg of the empty chair beside him. Getting up, Cam circled the table and wrapped his arms around his _keri_.

Mumbling so Cam could hardly hear him, John complained, “I was just getting around to the idea that maybe I could deal with it, with the incubator and all. But there’s still over two months to go before we know if that is going to work.”

John suddenly spun around and buried his face against Cam’s belly. Cam held him as he shook. This was John’s biggest fear, bar none. “You don’t have to do it,” Cam whispered, rubbing John’s back. “CB will figure something out; you don’t have to do it, John. One or two babies are not going to save the human race now.”

With a heavy sigh, John squeezed Cam’s middle and then leaned back to look up at him. “No, but what CB can learn from me and possibly Kate making the attempt could lead to something that does.” His shoulders slumped and he looked absolutely miserable. “I guess I should go see CB and see if he can pump me full of some KSG to get the hormone levels revved up again.”

“You’re so fucking brave,” Cam knelt beside him and grabbed his face, pulling him in for a kiss. “I don’t deserve you.”

“Yeah, right. You earned me, buddy,” John kissed him back and then pushed him away. Cam laughed as he toppled over, off balance. “Go tell Momma you’re gonna try to give her that grandbaby she’s been hinting about.”

Sobering, Cam rolled to his feet and held a hand out to tug John from his chair. “She misses the others. Not a day goes by when I don’t wonder what happened to everyone that didn’t make it to the Gate, I’m sure it’s like that for everyone that left people behind.”

John moved towards the door, trying to tug his hand away from Cam. “Let go.”

“Where you going?”

“I just told you, to see CB.”

“Now?”

“Why not now? Babies take a lot of time to cook, and CB needs data and stuff, right?”

Grinning, Cam squeezed his hand. “We’ll both go.”

~*~

  


“You’re sure John?” CB asked after throwing Mitchell out of his office to talk to Sheppard in private.

John nodded. “Yeah. I was getting to it anyway; I was just trying to get my nerve up. With the crap Cam told me today, I can’t see the point in waiting.”

“I appreciate that you’re volunteering. It isn’t an easy decision for you, I know.”

John gave his friend a wavering smile. “I’m doing it with Cameron. That makes a difference. Hit me with the good stuff, CB.”

Carson led him out into the infirmary and prepared two syringes. The injection was nowhere near as painful as the shots to dissolve the inhibitors had been over a year before. Carson grinned at Cameron. “You too, in for a penny, in for a pound; we might as well do this right and bump your PSG levels up a bit.”

It didn’t take long and soon they were back in their quarters, standing beside the bed. “John?”

“I’m okay. Really. Torra and Hope make something in my gut twist every time I see them. I want a kid. I want your kid.”

Cam moved over and tugged John into his arms. “You didn’t want one this way.”

John shrugged and leaned in as Cam rubbed his back, accepting the cuddle for what it was. “I’ll cope. I have nine months to get used to the idea.”

“If it takes.”

John snorted. “Please. Like it won’t take. You said there’s some kind of link to the Ancient Gene? Hello, super-gene here?”

“You sound like McKay.”

“I spend more time with McKay these days than I do with you,” John complained and twisted away to start taking off his uniform. “Let’s do this.”

“Such a romantic.”

John pointed a finger at Cam, “I never promised you I’d be sweet, Cameron.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's some more NC-17 stuff following this scene
> 
> ... carry on to Chapter 4 if you want to read the very short cut sex scene: John/Cam naughty bits. 
> 
> You can skip to Chapter 5 and not miss the plot if you want to pass over the naughty bits.


	4. More Pron!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is NC-17.
> 
> Naughty bits alert! 
> 
> John/Cam naughty bits.
> 
> You miss nothing except a naughty bit if you skip this chapter.

Tossing his clothes aside, John rolled onto the bed completely naked and looked up at Cam expectantly as he waved his hand in a circular motion. “Well, get with the program. There’s still too much fabric on you, Commodore.”

One thing he could say about his _keri_ , once he committed to a plan, he didn’t sway. Removing his clothing quickly, Cam crawled up on the bed and settled between John’s legs, leaning in to kiss him. As he licked John’s lips, he pulled back and made a face, sticking out his tongue. “Eww, you taste like _gresham_ root.”

“You big baby. I didn’t exactly have time to brush my teeth after dinner. It isn’t gonna kill you.” When Cam made a pouting face, John pushed roughly at his shoulder and wriggled to get out from under him.

Cam flopped onto his back and with an exaggerated whine said, “It’s grosssss, I haaate it, don’t ever make me lick gresham root out of your mouth again, please.”

Coming to the bathroom door, John jabbed the toothbrush into his mouth. “So? I hafe fafa roof.” He pulled the tooth brush out. “I still eat it.”

“When you can’t get Teyla to trade for it you do, and you make faces the whole time you’re eating anything with tava in it.”

Pointing the toothbrush at Cam’s fully erect cock, John said, “Keep it up and you can take care of THAT all by yourself tonight. I can wait until tomorrow for you to attempt to knock me up. I’ll sleep perfectly well.”

“You don’t need to be awake,” Cam gave him a lascivious grin, “I could just roll you over and take you, BAM! You wouldn’t know what hit you!” They both knew he was teasing; he’d never touch John without him being awake to enjoy it.

“I can take myself elsewhere. I’ll go sleep on Momma’s sofa.”

“You cannot go home to mother. She has a four foot long loveseat and a tiny little kiddie-sized bed that a grown man could never sleep on without waking up permanently deformed. You have to stay right here, where you belong.”

Bounding back into the room, John pounced on top of Cam and breathed heavily in his face. “Better?”

“Much.” Cam kissed him, running his tongue along John’s newly cleaned teeth and gums and then sucking on his tongue. “Much better, now you taste good.”

Kissing led to stroking and petting, which led to some frantic rubbing. Hissing out a breath, Cam grasped John’s hand and stopped him when he wrapped it around Cam’s cock. “That’s a no-no, I’ve got a hair trigger tonight, must be the shot.”

Sucking wetly on Cam’s nipple and biting lightly before letting go, John rolled over onto his back. “Grab the lube then.”

“We’ve just got the Athosian oil stuff; I couldn’t find any of the gel anywhere in Stores, we might have to trade on the gray market for it,” Cam said as he reached over John’s head and grabbed a bottle from the shelf over the bed.

Frowning, John said, “I’m gonna miss that gel. It didn’t have a funky taste like the oil.”

“It lasted longer too. Oh well, this we have plenty of, unlike… well, everything else. “

John let his thighs drop apart as Cam nudged him and dripped the oil over him. “I miss toilet paper. What a stupid thing to miss, huh?”

“Everyone with an allergy to _yelso_ leaves misses toilet paper. That was a friggin’ disaster.”

Laughing lightly as he remembered, John lifted his hips to give Cam better access. “I was raw for a week after that.”

“I know, I had to put the lotion on you, remember?”

“That lotion lasted longer than the Athosian oil as a lube.”

Cam shook his head and dropped the bottle back on the shelf. “We’re out of the lotion too. You want to be on your belly or your back for this?”

“Back to start, I want to watch you. I’ll turn over so you can finish deep.”

“I can go deep either way,” Cam replied as he wriggled his hips to get in position and then pushed inside John’s ass, making his _keri_ gasp. “Okay?”

“Yeah, just tight. Touch me?” John fumbled a hand around to grab at Cam’s and put it on his cock, keeping his hand wrapped around Cam’s, both of them working him for a minute before John let go to grab onto the blanket.

Cam sucked a breath through his teeth as he slid in and out a few times. “Fuck. I am not gonna last long at all here, John, sorry.” He pressed in deeper and held himself as still as he could. He stroked John’s cock with a jerk and twist that he knew John liked, working him to a quick peak, trying to match his own if he could.

Groaning deeply, John tossed his head on the pillow and then looked at Cam, scrunched his nose up and complained, “So, I gotta come fast too?”

“Come now and then I’ll suck you long time, soldier boy,” Cam promised, twisting John’s cock again.

“Would you fucking move already?!?” John slapped a hand on the mattress beside them and bucked his hips up a little to urge his _panor’eten_ on. “You are killing me, Mitchell, killing me.”

Refusing to move, though he really, really needed to, Cam teased John a little more, “When did you get to be so bossy? You were never this bossy before. You were always such a sweet little _keri_ , what happened to that guy? I miss him.”

“I was never sweet. Do you need me to bend you over and show you how to do it? Would you fuck me already?”

Cam looked down between them and then up at John again. “I do believe I am doing that. Can’t you feel my dick? It’s right there.”

“I hate you,” but there was no heat to the words and Cam knew John didn’t mean it since the emotions feeding back through the bond told him the exact opposite.

Cam yanked John’s cock again and John rose off the bed, his back arching as he came messily over Cam’s hand. “That’s what I wanted.” Cam pulled back, almost completely out, and then drove himself deeply inside John again, as John was still shuddering and coming in his hand. That provoked a scream from John, who raised his legs and hooked his ankles behind Cam, dragging him closer.

As a runner, John had really strong thighs, and when he applied pressure like he was doing now with his legs, Cam had to move at the pace John wanted. He thrust in and out, teeth clenched as he tried to think of distracting thoughts in order to hold out a little longer.

“Sorry, baby, no use,” Cam apologized as he came hard.

“That’s okay. You’re gonna suck me long time, soldier boy,” John replied with a grin. “You promised.”


	5. Problems

**February**  
Sitting on a gurney in the infirmary, John swung his legs and waited while CB was off running the test. He smiled and waved to Jack O’Neill as he came in. “Hi!’

“Hello, John. Everything okay, I hope?”

“Oh, fine, just here to let my favorite vampire stick me again, you?”

An irritated Scottish voice called out from the distance, “I heard that, John Sheppard-Mitchell!”

Lips twitching up at Beckett’s denial, he shrugged and yawned. “Just a headache I can’t seem to shake.”

“You and everyone else, it seems,” Doctor Fraiser remarked as she came in and overheard O’Neill’s statement. “Headaches abound the past few weeks. Come on, I’ll get you a couple of packets of Tylenol.”

He gave Janet a thankful look. “You have the real thing? Oh, I love you more than I did before, Jan. The fake generic ones from my kit are just not cutting it. Please, give me some!” He made grabby hands at the doctor, coaxing a smile from her. They walked away as Carson came towards John.

Lips tight, he shook his head sadly at John. “Sorry, lad, negative.”

“Still? It’s been a month, CB. I’ve had more sex in the past four weeks than in the past four months combined. Frankly, I’m getting sore”

Beckett shook his head. “I didn’t need to know that. Come over and get up on the scanner, I’ll check you over more thoroughly, if the bloody thing decides to work properly today. A word from you at your girl wouldn’t go amiss. I don’t know what the problem could be, John. I was sure this wouldn’t be an issue for you and Cameron.”

_‘Behave for Doctor Beckett.’ _John told the city in a mildly chastising voice. _‘He’s trying to help me. Be nice.’___ He didn’t know how much the city actually understood when he wasn't in the chair, but sometimes she surprised him by obliging his requests and so he had continued to converse with her occasionally in his head.

The scanner hummed and CB seemed happy with progress, so John sent a feeling of gratitude at the city.

“Everything looks fine, John. The egg sac is intact, the connection is undamaged. The faux-fallopian passage is clear and intact. I could try running another dye test to be sure there are no tears or leakage, but the last one we did for you was negative for any of that. Your KSG levels are sky high.”

“So, I should be pregnant?”

CB bit his lip and then nodded reluctantly. “Aye, I think you should be, I cannot find anything wrong with you to explain why you are not. Maybe you and Cameron should take a rest, stop trying so hard. Give him time to…”

“You think the problem is with Cam?”

“Aye, quite possibly, though he was also tested extensively before we left SGO, so I don’t know what’s going on with the pair of you. See if you can’t convince him to stop in and see me. I know how stubborn…”

“Cameron,” John said as he tapped his radio.

“What’s wrong?”

“Come to the infirmary. Now. CB needs to test you.”

“On my way.”

John touched the earpiece, crossed his arms over his chest and said to Beckett, “He’ll be here in five minutes.”

He was there in two, which impressed the hell out of Carson, since the doctor knew exactly how far it was to the Gate Room and the offices just above it, having made many emergency runs there with his team in the past.

Pointing to an exam table John said, “Sleeve up, let the vampire have at you.”

“Bossy for a _keri_ , isn’t he?” Carson remarked as Mitchell did exactly as he was told.

“Yeah, isn’t he hot when he’s like this?”

“I’m scary,” John said.

Beckett rolled his eyes. “Oh, let’s not start that again. You proved yourself already with all that Butcher of Lantea nonsense. Yes, you can be a very scary man when you try. Stop practicing in my infirmary.”

Smiling triumphantly at Beckett’s concession, John crowed delightedly, “And he finally admits it!”

Cam watched as Beckett drew a tube of blood, set it aside and then did another. “I take it these tests mean the rabbit is still alive and kicking?”

“Aye, he’s not carrying.”

Giving John a sad look, Cam tossed his chin towards the Ancient scanner in the corner. “Could something be seriously wrong?”

“I’ve been examined inside and out today, apparently I’m fine,” John said quickly when he saw Cam’s brow furrowing with real worry.

“What are you testing here, CB?” Mitchell asked.

“PSG hormone in the blood. I’m also going to run another compatibility test on the pair of you, to see if anything changed since the one I did back at SGO. I’m checking your blood for Brison’s Contagion, Third Invasion as well a few of the other known Remainder viruses.” Carson handed Cam two sample vials and tossed his chin towards the tiny restroom in the corner.

John blanched and looked at Cam with concern. “Remainder viruses? You don’t think we brought any of those through the Gate, do you?” Just the thought of losing Cameron now to one of the old illnesses made John’s stomach hurt.

“I’m merely checking for them, John. Don’t panic, I’ve seen no signs of any resurgence of the Remainders. But they’re called Remainders for a reason, yes; we brought some of them through. Hopefully, we never see a flare up. But we’re looking for a cause for this sudden drop in fertility, and the plagues were the start of our problems. Maybe something from the past is affecting us again. With no other obvious causes, I need to check the odd ones.”

Cam slid off the table and shook the two containers at CB. “Some and some, I assume?”

“If you would. Take your _keri_ with you if you need help with the one sample.”

Grinning cheerily, Cam started walking towards the infirmary restroom. “I can pee in a cup without my _keri’s_ help, CB!”

“Not what I meant, you great booby, and you know it.”

~*~

Mitchell went back to work after donating all the samples Beckett wanted, but John was now a nervous wreck and refused to leave the infirmary until he had made certain his _panor’eten_ wasn’t going to succumb to one of the old nightmare diseases that had wiped out such a large percentage of Earth’s population in the fifties and sixties, and led to rampant sterility in those that survived. He camped out on an empty bed with a laptop and an insulated urn of coffee to wait.

That was where McKay found him when he wandered into the infirmary, looking distracted. “Hey, you sick?”

“Nope. You look like shit.”

McKay waved a hand in the vicinity of his head. “Headache, can’t shake it. What’re you here for?”

“Waiting for test results.”

“Let me guess Doctor McKay, you have a headache?” Janet asked as she walked over to give Rodney an up and down glance.

“How’d you know?”

She made a note on her datapad. “We have had a rash of people coming in suffering from headaches.”

Looking over at John, McKay asked Doctor Fraiser. “Is he sick? He lies to me. He could be dying and he wouldn’t say anything to me except, ‘I’m fine’ and the next thing I know, I’m at a funeral.”

“He’s fine, Rodney. I believe he’s merely on a stakeout, stalking Doctor Beckett,” Janet laughed lightly and held a paper packet out to him. “Take those, get some sleep, lots of fluids, and come back if you still have pain tomorrow.”

He slipped the pills into the pocket of his uniform jacket and then Rodney walked over to the edge of the bed and gave Sheppard a considering look. “What kind of tests? Are you sick?”

“You just heard the doctor say I’m fine Rodney, are you calling her a liar?” John replied with a huff of mild annoyance. Rodney continued to glare at him and John caved; he was going to have to confide in Rodney eventually about this, it might as well be today. “Oh, fine, if you must know, Cameron had a battery of tests today; I’m waiting for the results.”

Rodney leaned on the edge of the bed beside John. “Cameron’s sick?”

“That is what I am waiting to find out.”

McKay looked around the deserted infirmary. “Where is he?”

“In his office, I assume.”

“Wait a second, he’s sick, but working, you’re fine, but in the infirmary? Do you ever do anything normally, Sheppard?”

“Not if I can help it,” John flashed him a grin.

Leaning over to look at John’s laptop, McKay tapped a key, the flashing message on John’s screen opened into a text box. McKay jabbed a finger towards the screen. “Install that or your system will crash when Radek does the next series of updates. Stop ignoring the system messages, you’re breaking things.”

“Yes mother.”

Aiming for casual and failing, Rodney asked, “What brought on the tests?”

“Why are you so nosy today?”

Crossing his arms, Rodney ignored the testy tone of John’s voice. “Because you don’t volunteer information, so I’m dragging it out of you. Tell me, if Mitchell is well enough to be at his desk, that means he’s not actively dying, so what brought this on, and what kind of tests?”

“CB is checking for Remainder viruses. We’ve been… we haven’t had any luck conceiving and CB kinda freaked me out when he mentioned the viruses, so I’m waiting until he finishes with all the tests.”

Rodney stared at him, hard. “You’re trying to get pregnant? You?”

“Yeah, me. The last three… the only three pregnancies recently have been _keri_ that were with the Expedition. Nothing since E Day.” John held up his hand and did the same count off he had done with Cam a month ago. “There were nine of us. Davis and Markham are sterile, Krackow and Duranti are too old, Chuck and Pei are pregnant now and David’s baby is in the cooker over there. That leaves me and Doctor Heightmeyer as the only viable test subjects to help figure this crap out.”

Looking pensive, McKay clasped John’s arm and squeezed. “I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but a science experiment is not a valid reason to have a child, John.”

Patting Rodney’s hand and taking his words in the comforting spirit in which his friend meant them, John replied, “It was time. I want to do this, with Cameron. Now I’m getting annoyed that it isn’t happening. I was sort of looking forward to it.”

“You were not!”

“Okay, so if I keep repeating that kind of thing, I might convince myself of it. Momma is thrilled, was thrilled. Now she’s gonna worry about Cameron with me.”

Having overheard the conversation, Beckett interrupted. “No need to worry, lad. Your man is clear. I can’t find a blessed reason for this in his blood work. I’ll have to scan him. I’m mystified. All the levels are fine; KSG, hormones, sperm count, there’s nothing really out of the ordinary, except his blood sugar is a mite bit high. Is there a history of diabetes in Cameron’s family?”

John tapped his radio, “Is there a history of diabetes in your family?”

“No. Am I dying?”

“Not today. But your sugar is high, what did you have to eat so far?” John asked, anticipating the next question.

“I had a muffin, a power bar and a couple of cups of not-coffee, no sugar.”

“How can you drink that crap without sugar?”

“I like it.”

“Weirdo.”

“You love me anyway. Are you coming back to work, now that you can stop hovering over CB’s shoulder?”

“In a little while, I’m not quite done worrying yet,” John clicked off the radio and said to Carson, “A muffin, a power bar and a couple of cups of not-coffee without sugar.”

“Ick!” Rodney pulled a face.

“I know, right?” John agreed with Rodney.

Carson made a note on his tablet and shrugged. “We’ll keep an eye on it. I didn’t ask him to fast for the tests; it could just be a normal level for him at this time of day. Off with you, I’ve work to do,” the doctor waved at them and strode away towards his office.

Rodney tugged John’s sleeve. “Can you spare me half an hour in the chair?”

“Doctor Fraiser told you to rest, Rodney.”

McKay shrugged and swallowed the pills dry. “I can hold up a bit longer. There’s a problem with the sewage line in the housing wing they just opened over in section eleven.”

“Okay, but only half an hour and then I have to go make an appearance in my office. You need rest and Cam will get tweaked if he hears I’m in the chair off-schedule.”

“He worries too much.”

“I kinda like it, now and then. Oh, Momma said they’re making macaroni and cheese on Wednesday.”

Stopping McKay smiled. “Have I told you that having your mother-in-law cooking here has been the best thing to happen to this city since, ever? I love that woman.”

“So do I. What do you say to heading down to the Main Mess on our way back from the Chair Room and seeing if she has anything for us to sample?”

Rodney gave a fake sniffle and wiped a non-existent tear from his eye. “I’m so blessed to have you as a friend.”

~*~

  


“ _Keri_? Why did Chuck just waddle in here to tell me the Chair Room is online? Since I’m looking straight at both Lorne and O’Neill, there’s only one Ancient Gene holder that can possibly be sitting in the big blue chair.” This was one of the rare times Cameron was not using _keri_ as a term of endearment when addressing John as such.

“Half an hour, there’s a sewage backup in the new housing section. People can’t flush, Cameron. I’m in and right back out, I promise.”

“You will not let her get her hooks into you, _keri_. I’m setting the timer now.”

John let the chair slide back and fell straight into the interface. He loved this. That was the problem, he enjoyed this as much as flying, and he’d stay here, if people didn’t pull him out. Time was meaningless in the interface. He’d stay right here and probably die of malnutrition and organ failure.

She showed him where the problem was and he coaxed and cajoled her into working with him to clear the clogged vents. The Ancient maintenance systems were just that, ancient, and they failed frequently. It took constant nudging to keep them moving.

***Pilot interface incomplete*** a message flashed in front of his face. ‘Not today, sweetheart. I’m just here for a minute. I can’t play long.’

***Pilot status error***

_‘I’m not broken, stop trying to fix me,’_ John told the city.

***User access granted. User Zelenka authorization approved***

_‘Oh, now you’re just kissing up. I can’t stay and play.’_ John skirted around another problem and pushed the drones that were in the sewage system towards section eleven.

***Interface Medical Database. User Beckett authorization level increase approved***

_‘Kissing up,’_ John hummed.

***Manipulation sequence at 90%***

_‘Wait, what was that? Repeat status,’_ John demanded, but Atlantis ignored him and carried on.

***Genetic profiling complete. Sequencing repair 90% complete. Access granted to all level one users***

_‘What the fuck is going on?’_

***Pilot syntax error***

_‘Don’t correct me, you're not my mother. Explain sequencing, Atlantis,'_ John demanded.

***Anomalies detected. Repairs initiated. Sequencing at 90%***

Oh, shit. This did not sound good, John thought. _‘Atlantis, explain process of sequencing.’_

***Detection stage…***

John yelped as he was physically dragged out of the chair and the connection was severed. “Shit, shit, shit!!! I was finally getting somewhere!” Rodney stood over him, his hands clasped tightly on John’s arms as John sat on the floor of the Chair Room.

“Sorry, John. You were in there for an hour. Mitchell has been screaming his head off over the coms and he threatened to come down here and take his belt to your ass if I didn’t get you out. Talk to him, hurry up.” Rodney held out John’s earpiece. John could hear Cameron's raised voice coming through the tiny speaker even before he Rodney passed it to him.

“… is he? I’m on my way, McKay.”

“I’m out, I’m out. Calm down, _panor_. I was making headway. That was really bad timing.”

“Not another word. I will talk to you about this later,” Cam clicked the line closed.

“Very mad?” Rodney asked as he took the radio back.

John nodded and rubbed the back of his neck, “Absolutely furious.”

“He wouldn’t really beat you with the belt, would he?” Rodney asked in a small voice.

“Nah. But he might use his hand; he has no problems spanking me,” John winked at his friend and grinned as Rodney hauled him to his feet.

~*~

“How’s my favorite girl today?” John asked as he leaned in the doorway of the kitchen. He and Rodney had detoured there to avoid the wrath of Cameron for as long as possible. Giving the Commodore time to simmer down when he was upset was always a good idea.

Looking up from where she had been happily pounding dough, Wendy gave him a brilliant smile. “She’s hoping you’ll come and give me a kiss.”

He obliged her, kissing her cheek and then pressing another to her forehead. “And one from Cam.”

“Hi, Momma!” Rodney said with a wave and a hopeful smile. “May I come in too?” McKay knew better than to trespass through the kitchen door without permission. Momma Mitchell guarded her territory fiercely.

Wendy gave him a considering look, “Have you been making people cry today?”

“Not one!”

“Come in then. No sneaking tastes out of the bowls. There’s orange juice in everything on that side of the kitchen.” Wendy smirked at John as Rodney practically danced to get away from the threat. He bent down and obediently bussed Wendy’s cheek when she presented it. John knew there wasn’t an ounce of orange juice anywhere in the city, but he let Wendy pretend there was to keep Rodney in line, it was amusing to see him actually behave and be polite and respectful to someone.

“What are you boys up to?”

Rodney pinched the bridge of his nose. “I think I’m going to go for a nap, try to shake this headache.”

“Oh, you too? Quite a few people have been coming in with headaches. I wish it would stop, it’s hard to work like this.”

“You have a headache as well Momma?” John moved to rub at her shoulders and then put his fingers to her temples, applying light pressure and rubbing gently the way Cam had taught him. “Come by tonight, I’m sure Cam will give you a proper massage.” And there would be less yelling if Momma was around, she would make a very good diversion.

“Oh, you’re doing fine, honey. Keep doing that. Rodney, there are some not-chocolate donuts cooling on the rack over there, you may have one.” Wendy dropped her head forward as John dug his thumbs in. After a few minutes she shrugged him off and patted her dough. “That felt good. Maybe I will come by; Cameron is very good at giving neck massages.”

A thought occurred to John and he tapped his radio, “Do you have a headache?”

Cameron was silent, though John could hear him breathing.

"You can give me the silent treatment later, Cameron, talk now."

“Yeah, one not helped in the slightest by your dumbass stunt," Mitchell grumbled.

“Ask Marks and Lorne if they have headaches,” John listened as Cam called out the question.

“Marks, yes, a mild one. Lorne said yes, but claims it's only a fraction of what he’s used to. What’s going through that fluffy head of yours?”

“O’Neill, McKay, your mother, all _panor_ , all with headaches. Check with CB, but I’m of the opinion we should send out a citywide query and see if this is a symptom affecting all of our _panor_.”

“I’m on it. Kiss Momma for me.”

“Already done. See ya in a bit.”

Before he clicked off, Cam grunted, "Still mad."

Stuffing the last bite of donut into his mouth, Rodney pointed towards the door. “I’m going to go, see if I can pick up anything on the internal sensors.”

“Take a donut for Laura.”

“Yes Momma. Thank you.” Rodney bussed her cheek again, grabbed another donut and left.

John chuckled. “You have him so well trained.”

“Some men are highly motivated by food. That man is one of them. You had tests today?”

“I failed tests today. Sorry, Momma, no baby yet.”

She sighed and gave him a small smile. “It will happen, when God means it to happen.”

~*~

  
John went back to the infirmary instead of to his office, deciding to let Marks handle the desk today; this was important. Besides, Cam was up there and he was still pissed off.

“Hey CB, you busy?” John paused in the doorway of Beckett’s office.

His friend looked up and waved him forward. “You again?”

John grinned. “I might have something for you. I was in the chair a little while ago.” Carson frowned and leaned back to glare at John.

“An hour. Just an hour. But she said something weird. What do the phrases manipulation sequence, anomalies detected, genetic profiling and sequencing repairs sound like to you?”

Carson’s mouth dropped open and his jaw worked for a few moments. “Oh. Oh my. It sounds like you might have stumbled onto something, John. Anomalies detected? Could Atlantis have been running scans on us? We know she does. Of course she has. Anomalies detected? Could the bloody city be doing something to undo the changes the Jirante made? Bloody hell!”

As Carson leapt up and grabbed a tablet and ran from the office. John watched him go and muttered, “Bloody hell, indeed.”

~*~

  
The Overseer of Atlantis was extremely grumpy. “I don’t like this,” Mitchell said, glaring at the chair as McKay and his team moved around, hooking up equipment. He really hated that chair. He knew it was irrational jealousy for an inanimate object, but the chair took his _keri_ away whenever he sat in it. So Cam hated it.

John sighed and banged his head lightly on the wall he was leaning against. “I know. But we have to figure out what Atlantis has been up to. We worked it out, Lorne and I will switch off, neither of us will be in there too long.”

Hearing his name, Lorne looked up from the tablet he was working on, “Huh?”

“Just nod,” John replied. With a shrug, Lorne nodded and went back to his work.

“I still hate this. What the hell has the city been doing?”

John rubbed Cam’s arm briefly and gave it a squeeze, the barest of attempts at a soothing gesture, before dropping his hand quickly away as Cam scowled at him. “We’ll figure it out.”

“Ready when you are Commander,” Grodin called as he patted the back of the chair.

As John moved, Cam swept a hand out and caught his _keri_ by the back of the head, yanked him over and mashed their lips together. John stumbled and nearly fell, catching himself by bracing his hands on Cam’s chest. Temper and jealousy and irritation and the pain in his back and the headache he couldn’t get rid of were all combining to make him a bit moodier than usual, and a bit more aggressive. When John pulled back from the bruising kiss, rubbing his lip with one hand, Cam jabbed a finger in the air by his nose and hissed, “Twenty minutes. You tell that electronic bitch that you have twenty minutes and that is it.”

“We agreed on half an hour,” John countered, trying to pull completely away, but was held firmly in place by Cam’s hand, still cupping the back of his head.

“You always go over your allotment. Ten minutes is your buffer. I mean it John; I will blow a head gasket if you are not out of that chair in thirty minutes and one second.”

Countering Cam’s aggression with uncharacteristic softness, John nodded and then leaned in and kissed Cam softly, touching his hand to Cam’s face and stroking as he pulled back. “I love you; I will always choose you over anything else, Cameron.”

Placated somewhat, Cam released his hold on his _keri_ and let him go to the chair. Every eye in the room was on them; it wasn’t often they touched or displayed any kind of emotion in public; both Cam and John were inherently private people. Knowing this was fodder for the gossip mill just annoyed him more. Cam glared at everyone watching, pointed and growled at the science team, “Do not break my _keri_.

“No, sir, we shall not break him,” Zelenka assured after clearing his throat nervously. When Cam looked over at him, the Czech flushed and quickly went back to work.

From across the room, McKay continued to stare at Cam. Their relationship was still tense at times, like now, for instance. Mitchell would always be the interloper who stole Rodney’s best friend away and Cam knew it. “What, McKay?”

Rodney stepped over some wiring and strode over to stand in front of him. Showing uncharacteristic restraint, Rodney said quietly, just loudly enough for Cam to hear, “You need to dial it down, Mitchell. You’re scaring my team. You’ve got John on edge; look at him, his hands are shaking. You made your point, you’re in charge. Enough.”

Embarrassed, Cam ran a hand through his hair. “Shit. Yeah. Okay.” He slapped Rodney’s shoulder. “Sorry, I don’t know what’s gotten into me.”

As John settled into the chair, Cam followed him, dodging scientists and equipment to get to his side. He knelt down beside the arm of the chair and picked up John’s hand. Rodney was right; John was trembling. Shit. He’d done this. All the crap Cam was feeling, that had been building up for days had probably been slamming at his _keri_ through their bond. Cam was so hyped up; he wasn’t picking up any of John’s responses or emotions back through the bond. He’d had to have it pointed out by an outsider. Feeling very guilty, he rubbed John’s hand. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re pissed,” John closed his eyes and leaned his head back.

“Not at you. At the situation, at the city, at the pain in my head, now at myself for being an ass, but I’m not really angry with you.”

John opened his eyes and looked at Cam with concern. “Hurt bad?”

“Bad enough, I’ll be fine. Just be careful using the interface, okay? I’m sorry I’m dumping all over you, I’ll try to tamp it down and hold some of it back,” Cam stood and bent over to kiss John tenderly on the lips, then pressed a kiss to the center of his forehead and caressed his cheek. “I love you too. I would do anything for you.”

When Cam touched his _keri’s_ hand again before stepping back, at least the trembling had stopped. John looked up and met his eyes and smiled lightly before he closed them and let the chair activate and recline back.

Cam moved to stand near the wall beside Lorne. As McKay walked past him, making notes on a tablet, he briefly glanced up at Mitchell and commented, “Better.”

Relationship advice from Rodney McKay? Oh, Cam was slipping, indeed.

~*~

  
 _‘Atlantis, explain sequencing process,’_ John demanded as soon as the connection was established.

***Pilot interface incomplete***

_‘Not today, Atlantis. Answer the question.’_

***Clarify request, Pilot***

_‘Status of sequencing repair?’_

***Sequencing repair at 92%***

_‘Identify source of sequencing,’_ John realized that had been the wrong question as a ton of data began to stream in front of his eyes, obliterating his view of every other status box he had opened. _‘Atlantis, stop! Save data to file, transfer file to SGO interface, authorize user McKay, authorize user Zelenka, mark file urgent.’_ He saw an indicator icon flash that the transfer was in progress. When it was done, Rodney and Radek would be able to pick the file up on the integrated SGO-Atlantis system.

He had a list of questions from CB; hopefully he could get through them before he got yanked out when his time was up. He lost track of time when he was working in the Chair. _‘What is the nature of the sequencing repair?’_

***Genetic anomalies detected in potential users, repairs in progress***

_‘Under what authority?’_ This was a key question, to figure out how the city had started on this project.

The city seemed to hiccup slightly at the question; the response took a few seconds longer than usual to come back. ***Base programming, standard procedure, infection protocol number twelve***

Infection protocol? Okay, so this wasn’t specifically something they had done, this was leftover programming by the Ancients. They had dealt with this in the past.

_‘How are you repairing affected potential users?’_ Questioning the Atlantis AI was tricky, a lot like trying to get information out of a five year old. The AI was eager to help, but you had to ask the question in exactly the right way, or you got gobbly goop in reply. It had taken John four and a half years to learn to query the AI, and it was still frustrating as hell for him. When Lorne came out of the chair, he was usually red-faced and bitching up a storm from aggravation, being comparatively new to it.

***Biological treatment via hydration tanks***

The water? The city had dumped something in the water supply? Rodney was going to lose his mind. _‘What is the composition of biological treatment? Save data to file, transfer file to SGO interface, authorize user Mitchell, authorize user McKay, authorize user Beckett.’_ After a moment, he saw a message that it was done.

An alert came up and John’s attention was drawn to it. It looked like questioning their suspect would have to be put on hold for a while. _‘Atlantis, engage cloak!’_ He severed his connection to the city and sat up.

“That was only eight minutes,” McKay protested.

Sheppard caught Mitchell’s eye, “We’ve got Wraith in the system. Long range sensor sweep shows two hives.”

Cameron looked around as the science team began gathering their equipment. “This will have to get shoved to the back burner for a while. You all know the drill.” He caught John’s elbow and walked with him to the door, Beckett joined them as they went down the corridor, McKay trailing a step behind after leaving Zelenka to clear the Chair Room. “What did you find out?”

“I sent a bunch of stuff to the network. The city was acting according to an infection protocol.”

Carson grunted and looked at Mitchell, “Aye, we had issues with those our first year here, we’ve had a few a quarantine incidents, all of that is automated and connected to the detection systems. We determined we were better safe than sorry and left the pesky things in place.”

They reached the transporter and the four of them squeezed inside. “I suspect that when I started nudging the city to grant more access to more Ancient Gene holders, she started doing some scanning,” John was guessing about this part, but it was the only thing he could think of to explain the timing of it, he didn’t think the city would have just started deep scanning people’s genetics randomly.

“… and ran into the adaptations the Jirante made,” Carson concluded.

“So what did your girlfriend do about it?” Cam asked somewhat impatiently as they stepped out and headed towards the Gate Room. Alerts were flashing and people were moving around quickly as the city went into alert status.

“She dumped something in the water. As near as I can tell from the timestamps I saw, almost five months ago, starting back in September.”

“She what?” Cam shook his head in disbelief.

“WHAT!?!” blurted Rodney. “Oh my God, we’re being systematically poisoned!”

“Beckett, get some tests going, see what you can find in the water supply,” Cam said, ignoring the sputtering, red-faced Rodney.

“I will, but I suspect it is far too late. The daft machine claimed to be ninety percent complete…”

“Ninety two,” John corrected absently, his thoughts on the Wraith.

Carson gestured at John, taking in his correction. “Ninety two percent complete. Any biological agent would have done its damage by now. We’re already seeing the results with the drop in the birth rate.”

“But how? The Jirante changed us on a genetic level.” Mitchell looked at his two head scientists. McKay deferred to beckett with a tilt of his head.

“Don’t forget, Commodore, the original changes the Jirante were attempting to correct were the result of biological contamination stemming from the plagues and the chemical warfare during the Incursions. Did you learn anything else, John?’

“I sent a couple of files your way on the network before the Wraith distracted me.”

“Good lad. I’ll leave you lot to defending the city now. I’ll let you know if I learn anything.”

“The city is poisoning us,” Rodney said as Beckett left.

“McKay, focus. Wraith. I need you to boost the cloak. Leave the medical stuff to CB,” Cam said, though not unkindly. He was spooked by this whole thing as well. After all, he could feel the damned effects of whatever the city had dosed them with in his own body. He had been dealing with this persistent headache for weeks now. He stretched, trying to relieve some of the ache in his lower back.

McKay nodded tightly, raised his tablet and began tapping at it. “I can shift some secondary systems around, shut down some non-essential functions; I can probably buy us two days or so, just by doing that.”

“Hopefully we don’t need it. Maybe they’ll just float on by.”

John and Rodney snorted in unison and Cam shrugged. “A guy can dream, can’t he? Get on that, McKay, we’ll be in Command if you need us.”

From his console, Chuck waved to get their attention as they walked into Gate Control. When they walked over, Chuck had the visual of what John had seen in the chair up on one of the large screens, two dots blinking at the edge of the sector. “Four days out, sirs.”

“What’s that?” John pointed at a trio of unidentified dots out in front of the hives. Cam squinted and leaned in to look where John was pointing.

“According to the SGO database, those are Hrsul battle cruisers. The same kind that took out Earth and Langara,” Chuck said as he shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

“It never rains but it pours,” Cam mumbled.

Chuck looked up hopefully and said, “Maybe the Wraith will catch them.”

“We’re never that lucky,” John drawled, staring at the screen for a moment before following Cameron into his office.

When the door closed, Cam said, “Our fertility issues might have just become a moot point. If the Hrsul don’t blow us out of the water, the Wraith will.”

“We’ve got the cloak.”

“Will it work against the Hrsul? Who knows what they can detect and can’t detect? It isn’t like Earth had any time to study them. Our shields are calibrated for Wraith. How long can the cloak last?”

Thinking about it, John replied, “If we divert all power to the cloak and burn out every system in the city, we might be able to get a month out of the cloak, the shields would last longer.”

Sighing, Cam rubbed his neck. “Do we hide or do we shield? I don’t know which is the better choice.”

“We could run.”

“To where? We’ve yet to find a suitable Alpha Site that would support our current population. If we run, we can’t defend the civilians in the future if the Wraith find us again. We’d have to split up; not one site on our list will support more than four thousand people for any length of time.” Cam sat slowly in his chair and dropped his head into his hands. This was his worst nightmare coming to life, an emergency they were unprepared to face.

John was pacing in front of Cam’s desk. “If we put McKay and his people on repairing the star drive, we could move the city.”

It was a pipe dream, the damages to the star drive were extensive and they didn’t have the equipment, supplies or know-how to make the needed repairs. “You know why the project was shelved during Elizabeth Weir’s time, John. You’ve run the analysis yourself, I’ve seen your notes on it in the reports you made to SGO, you know that won’t work.”

“I felt the need to at least mention the option. We should begin evacuating the civilians and non-essential personnel to the old Alpha Site; at least get some of them out of harm’s way.”

His head was throbbing; Cam fumbled in his pocket for a packet of Tylenol and popped the pills into his mouth. “I hate to put them through that if we don’t absolutely have to; these people are already so traumatized.”

“We might have to,” John said sadly.

“Yeah, I know. Let’s rally the troops and get the ball rolling.”

~*~

  
Three days later, the city was eerily quiet as everyone waited for the inevitable arrival of their enemies. The civilians had been briefed and volunteers had already begun to Gate to the Expedition’s original Alpha Site, under the command of Sub Commander Caldwell. P7U-335 was now far too small to sustain the number of people they had living in the city, but it was the best they had. From the command center they would set up there, they would have to find new places to settle.

Sub Commander Lorne, AG-2 and Ronon Dex had taken a group of volunteers to the ruins of Sateda. It would never be able to support a large number of people for any length of time, but there were some defensible positions there. AG-2’s small expedition was hoping to determine the feasibility of using Sateda as a fallback position, should the shield fail. They might have to move far from the Gate to find a suitable area to reside long term since the Satedean capital was in ruins.

The Overseer had decided to shield the city, rather than cloak it. The Hrsul’s capabilities were largely an unknown, and Mitchell had decided to go with the option that gave them more time. The city’s cloak used far too much energy. The shield would buy them more time to evacuate.

Cam was leaning on the rail, trying to take some of the pressure off his back when Peter Grodin called him into the Control Room.

“Sir, look!”

When he walked in and looked at the screen, he noticed that one of the hives was gone. “Where did it go?”

“Watch sir,” Peter said excitedly, and hit a few keys on his computer. The screen flickered and there were once again two hives pursuing the Hrsul ships. “This is fifteen minutes ago.” The screen flickered again, “Ten, and five, watch at the four minute mark, Commodore.”

The hive closer to the Hrsul blinked away.

“Did they jump?” John asked as he joined them. His hand was clasped on Cam’s shoulder as he leaned in over Grodin’s terminal. Cam soaked up John’s lazy calm like a sponge. His _keri_ was a rock right now, and Cam was leaning on him heavily for support as he felt himself slowly losing his grip. He was finding it hard to concentrate for any length of time, and his emotions were out of control. This had to stop, he needed to get himself sorted out.

“Here’s the interesting thing Commander, the sensors picked up a tremendous energy discharge, forty three seconds in length, just prior to the disappearance. The source of the energy was the Hrsul ships.”

Cam smiled. “They blew up the Wraith.”

“It looks that way. It appears to have been a concerted firing effort from all three Hrsul ships,” Grodin said, pointing to a stream of data.

John tapped the remaining hive on the overhead monitor. “They’re backing off a bit.”

“I wish we could say the enemy of my enemy is my friend, but we know that isn’t true in this case,” Peter said with regret.

“Keep an eye on things. Let me know if those Hrsul do anything odd. Like turn around and go back to the Milky Way,” Cam stretched and went towards his office, John in tow.

“You need a nap.”

“I’ve got a long one coming, the Hrsul will see to it. If I wasn’t sure I’d puke it all right back up, I’d be hitting the bottle of Zelenka’s hooch I have stashed in my desk drawer.” Cam sat and leaned back with a heavy sigh.

“One less hive. We can handle the other one, I think, with what we’ve got in the arsenal.”

With a rueful chuckle, Cam said, “Sure, no problem. If we live that long, you have carte blanche to throw all the drones at them your heart desires, _keri_.”

“The reports from Sateda are positive. Ronon showed them a few good campsites,” John sat on the edge of Cam’s desk. When Cam looked up, the look he got was full of worry. “Maybe you should go see Carson, get some IV fluids, or pain meds or something. You haven’t slept in days, Cameron.”

He waved off the concern, he’d live, he was just a little miserable. A lot of other people were worse off and working through, despite their symptoms. He could do no less. “What’s the situation with the water?”

“As Carson thought, whatever it was is gone now. He looked at the compound in the data the city gave me, it was an engineered virus. Carson has started checking the _panor_ as they’re coming in for treatment for the headaches. He hasn’t found anything in the blood work.”

“What are you smirking at, John?”

“The city has a new boyfriend. She has a crush on O’Neill. Lorne, she’ll barely give the time of day to, but Jack, he’s her new best boy.”

“Good. She can have him, you’re mine.”

“While he was in the chair yesterday, he was able to coax the plans for the star drive out of her, in addition to shunting around some of the power feeds. Rodney was happy.”

“Are we any closer to getting the damned Eye of Anubis working? That thing might help against the Hrsul or the Hive.”

“Funny you should mention that, Cadman just asked for permission to test it again.”

“You’re kidding me?”

John shook his head and smiled, “Would I kid about that? She isn’t sure it will work, but she made some new modifications and wants to take it out to the East Pier and fire it up.”

“Yes, go, do, whatever she needs.”

John was laughing as he went to the door. “I’d really feel better if you saw CB.”

“Maybe later on, to make you feel better.”


	6. BOOM!

**February**  
The EoA tests had flopped, much to Cadman’s extreme disappointment. Cadman had been determined to make the gift Commodore Kawalsky had sent them over a year and a half ago function, despite the fact that no one on Earth up until that point had been able to figure it out. John found himself patting her back and consoling her as she pouted and kicked the tires of the trailer. After two minutes of abject misery, she straightened her shoulders, clenched her jaw and vowed to go back to the drawing board and find some way to get it working.

John’s suggestion that Sam Carter might be able to help had Cadman tipping her head in thought. Up until then, she had been extremely proprietary about the Eye of Anubis project, but this latest failure had apparently softened her up to the point that she actually seemed to be giving the suggestion of help serious consideration. When John left her on the pier, she had agreed to talk to Carter. It was progress, for Cadman.

Cam looked up through the glass wall of his office as John walked into the Control Room. John shook his head, shrugged and gave him a thumb down. His _panor’eten_ responded with a tight nod and turned his attention back to the conversation he was having with Major Marks.

“Excuse me, Commander, does this look familiar to you at all?” asked the woman that sat next to Chuck at the communications console. John could never remember her first name, Amanda or Emily or something.

“What is it, Banks?” John squinted at the screen where she was pointing.

She tapped the screen and replied, “A pattern I picked up in one of the lower bands. It’s too regular to be natural interference.”

He didn’t see what she was trying to show him. But that’s why she was a communications officer and John was not. He would take her word on it that there was something unusual going on. “Can you let me hear it?” She nodded, hit a few keys and then the sound came over the speakers. He listened, and then motioned for her to replay it. “There’s something there,” he muttered.

John patted her arm, held up a finger to indicate she should wait a moment and walked over to Cam’s office. He hoped his _panor’eten_ was a bit more agreeable at the moment than he’d been in the last few days, since the last time John had used the AI interface. “Commodore, permission to use the chair?”

“What for?” Cam snarled.

He glanced back over his shoulder, “Uhm, Banks found something in the communications static; I was hoping I could get a clearer read on it from the chair.”

“And?”

“And what?’

“What else are you going to do while you’re communing with the city?”

“Check the sports scores, the Dow, maybe read a few movie reviews,” John rolled his eyes and made a huffing noise. “I’m just going to see if the city can clean up the static.” John hated how unreasonable Cameron got about the chair. It was the only thing John ever had to officially clear with him and it grated on his nerves to do so.

Cam sighed and waved, “Fine. A few minutes.”

At least he hadn’t said no. Sometimes he said no. It would have taken thrice as long for him to explain to Lorne how to access the system he needed and how to phrase the series of commands to get the information as it would for John to do it himself.

“Banks, you’re with me, I’ll need you to find that band again when we get there.” She hopped up from her stool and followed him to the stairs.

Once in the chair, John was bombarded with messages, a direct result of Rodney’s monkeying with systems elsewhere. There was always a huge cleanup after anyone made changes to the coding. He waded through the messages and set the city to a few tasks as he waited for Banks to send over what he needed from the integrated SGO-Atlantis system.

He saw it and raised his hand and gave Banks an okay sign and then set Atlantis to cleaning up the signal.

It was severely fragmented and faint, but there was a verbal message within the static. After putting it through the filters several times, John was still only able to make out a few pieces of the message.

“…tis... burned out all… one hive… any assis… help.”

Later, when John repeated the dregs of the message to Cam, the Commodore frowned. “The missing pieces of that could be anything. Is that a threat or a distress call?”

John had no answer; in fact he’d had the same question.

“Well, the Hrsul will reach us first. Maybe we’ll get a clearer message when they get here tomorrow. I find it odd that they would be asking for our help.”

~*~

  


The message they got at 0834 the next morning was not only clearer, but completely unexpected.

Banks smiled as she listened to the hail and then put it on the overhead speakers as soon as Cam, John and Lorne came out of Cam’s office and Cam motioned for her to do so.

“Come in Atlantis. This is Commander Telford of Stargate Operations, are you reading us? Please respond.”

Grinning, Cam said, “Dave Telford was the Overseer of the Icarus base.”

“It’s on a repeating loop, Commodore, should I answer?” Banks looked to Cam.

“Yeah, open the line;” when she indicated it was open, Cam tapped his radio and said, “This is Atlantis, where exactly are you calling from, Telford? Over.”

Cam heard cheering in the background when Telford opened the line from his end to respond, “We commandeered a few of the Hrsul cruisers. Unfortunately, we have been unable to shake our tail, sorry to drag them to your doorstep. Over.”

“You eliminated one of them; we can certainly help with the other. We show you six hours out from our location. Over.”

There was relief evident in Telford’s voice. “We hoped you hadn’t moved. It was hell getting your address in the first place. I’ve got a lot of people needing medical care, Atlantis, I hope you can provide. We’ve got supplies but no medical personnel aboard. Over.”

Stepping aside, John quietly radioed Medical and told Carson to prepare for an incoming flood.

“How many injured people are we talking about, Telford? Cam asked so they could prepare Carson.

“One hundred injured give or take, not counting my walking wounded. It’s probably closer to three, counting them in. Over.”

“We’ll be ready. Atlantis over and out.”

“So, the enemy of our enemy IS our friend today,” John grinned as he left to help with the unexpected change in their plans. They had been granted breathing room, if the incoming ships were truly under human control and not part of a Hrsul decoy.

~*~

  


Telford had not been exaggerating. The three ships were in very sad shape when they arrived and made orbit over Lantea. Engineers quickly determined that one of the Hrsul cruisers clearly wouldn’t survive re-entry, so the least damaged of the cruisers docked with the doomed one and started transferring people, supplies and gear over. Atlantis sent puddlejumpers up to assist with the evacuation and to strip the ship of any useful salvage and parts.

Commander Telford landed his cruiser on the West Pier and was greeted by a squadron of armed marines as he walked down the ramp. Hands in the air, he smiled broadly as he saw Sub Commander Lorne waiting with them. He was clearly not overly disturbed to be greeted by having weapons pointed at him.

“Commander Telford. What brings you to the neighborhood?” Lorne signaled his men to lower their weapons when he saw that Telford and his small party were unarmed, and human.

“The new management sucked, so we conked a few of them over the heads and stole their rides.” He came forward and shook Evan’s hand heartily. “I cannot tell you how happy and relieved I am to see you, Sub Commander. We were getting a little desperate.”

Lorne nodded, relief was something they all felt at the moment. “We thought you were the bad guys coming to finish us off.”

Telford shook his head, “No, that would be the guys following us. Tall, ugly, long hair, partial to leather, with bad eating habits?”

“We’ve met. They’re fun guys. Their parties are hell on the neighborhood. I’m to show you and your command staff in.”

“That would be me, and these two.” Telford jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the long-haired exotic civilian man and a dusky-skinned major standing behind him, introducing them as “Skaara, Mehra.”

Lorne led them to the transporter and from there to Mitchell’s office. Mitchell was leaning on the edge of the desk, Sheppard was sprawled in a chair, Marks and Davis were sitting on the sofa by the wall.

Telford’s step faltered as he entered the room and saw Mitchell. “Commodore Mitchell? We thought… I’m sorry, sir, the news and reports out of SGO said you were dead.” Telford snapped off a salute.

After a muffled exclamation of disbelief, Skaara edged around Telford, ran over and embraced Cam.

“And you pass that portion of the test. Everyone at SGO thought he was dead, only those of us here in Pegasus knew that he wasn’t,” Sheppard said as he stood and walked over to shake Telford’s hand. “Welcome to Atlantis. How in the hell did you get here?”

~*~

  


Cam couldn’t believe that Skaara was alive. But he was hugging him, so it must be so. He pulled away and smiled at the younger man, rubbing Skaara’s arms briskly. “It is so good to see you, old friend.”

“I thought you were dead, they told us that Sub Commander Sheppard told them you were dead,” Skaara said, giving John a dirty and accusatory look over his shoulder. Sheppard grinned and shrugged in response.

“A mistake.” Cam tipped his head in Lorne’s direction, including him in his statement, “We were just kidnapped and tortured, we’re much better now, aren’t we, Lorne? How in the hell did you get here?” he echoed Sheppard’s question.

“I am sure Marshal O’Neill and Doctor Carter-O’Neill will be happy to see you Ambassador Skaara,” John said as Skaara left Cam’s side and moved to shake John’s hand.

“Jack is alive? I heard that he was going to Antarctica for the last defense of Earth. He sent me a letter of farewell, I gathered from it that he did not expect to survive,” Skaara looked very happy at the news that his friend still lived.

Cam smiled. “Well, he did both. It’s a little tough for him to get around, so we’ll take you to him after we’re done here. You have some catching up to do.”

“Apparently so.” Skaara tipped his head graciously to Telford to make his report, bowing to military protocol.

Telford cleared his throat. “After the last major wave of Hrsul attacks, I got to SGO headquarters and found I’d missed the boat, so to speak. About a hundred other people were in the same situation. We grabbed whatever vehicles we could get to run and went to the base at Petersen, and then over to Area 51, trying to find a safe place to hide from the Hrsul patrols.”

Along the way, we found some other folks either coming from or going to SGO and by the time we got to Nevada, we had about four hundred people, mostly military that had known about the bases and were trying to get to them. We ransacked 51, armed ourselves and hijacked the first Hrsul cruiser we found on the ground. Let me tell you, those guys are ugly and tough to kill. We decided to try to find as many survivors as we could before making a break for space. We snuck around Earth for a few weeks, scooping folks up wherever we could find them. We came across another parked cruiser with minimal security and swiped it, and then the third. The Hrsul are arrogant enough to not set up adequate security on their assets.”

Cam interrupted Telford’s report asking, “How many people did you find on Earth, Commander?”

“All together, four thousand three hundred and seven, we found quite a few pockets of survivors that had managed to hide from the Hrsul. There may have been more, but things started to get risky, and when we couldn’t find anyone new within a span of twelve hours, we decided to hightail it outta there. We grabbed everything we could find supplies-wise and ditched Earth while the Hrsul were off raiding somewhere else. We headed to the Alpha Site, and that’s where we picked up this pair.” He smiled over at Skaara and then nodded at Mehra to continue.

“We had a much smaller group; about eight hundred of us survived the attacks. The Gate was destroyed during the evacuation; so a lot of us got cut off,” Mehra said quietly. “Ambassador Skaara and I gathered everyone together and headed for the caves, hoping the Hrsul didn’t know about them. We were lucky someone in Commander Telford’s group did, or they might not have found us before our food ran out.”

Lorne was leaning against the wall. “You took quite a chance, heading here.”

Nodding in agreement, Telford said, “We couldn’t see another choice, really. Home is gone. They’re pillaging it bare. All of our allies in the Milky Way have fallen. We can only hope the Hrsul don’t come this way.”

“Could they be tracking you?”

Mehra grinned and shook her head, “We stripped the beacons as soon as we found them and ditched them out an airlock.”

“We have to deal with this Wraith hive. As much as I would love to sit and do a lengthy debriefing with you, Commander, we will have to cut this short so that we may address the Wraith issue.”

“Yes of course, what are your orders, sir?” Telford snapped to attention.

Cam rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Get the people off the cruisers. We’ll use the ships as a first line of defense against the Wraith hive.”

“I don’t know how much we can do; we burned ourselves out in that last dogfight.”

He smirked at Telford. “You didn’t have McKay, Carter and Zelenka there to make magic. Sheppard, get them on it, see what they can figure out.”

“You got it.” John headed for the door.

As Cam pushed away from the desk, intending to shake Telford’s hand again and make some kind of official ‘Welcome and Good Job’ type of speech before dismissing him to Medical for a check up, everything started to go fuzzy and he felt numb all over. 

Sound faded, as if coming through a tunnel. He felt his knees buckle. Suddenly frightened, he looked for his _keri_ and called out “John?”

~*~

  


In the midst of conveying information to McKay via radio, John turned at the strangled gasp of his name, and saw Cameron slump over into a heap on the floor. “Just get up here, Rodney!” John hissed into the radio as he dropped to his knees beside his _panor_ , frantically feeling for his pulse. Lorne was already calling for Medical to send a team, arguing that the Overseer was down when someone apparently fussed at him that they were currently very busy.

“Cameron?” John pushed at his shoulder, rolling him over onto his back. His breathing was odd and shallow and his color was all wrong. “Cameron!”

Lorne knelt beside him, concern on his face. “John, loosen his clothes. Davis, get some water, Marks, clear a path for Medical to get in here.”

By the time Beckett arrived with a team and a gurney, looking harried and annoyed, John was nearly in a panic because Cameron was not coming around. He looked to his friend desperately. “CB? He won’t wake up.”

“All right, let me see, move aside John, you too Evan.” Carson elbowed his way in and knelt down and started to examine Cam. He snapped his fingers to get John’s attention as John stared at Cameron’s face. “John, look at me lad, was he ill at all or complaining of anything today?”

“He’s had a headache, he’s been tired and his back has been bothering him.”

“How’s he been eating?”

John shrugged. “Erratically, skipping breakfast completely most days, he’s been picky at lunch, and then ravenous at night.”

“I think he’s just passed out, though I’m concerned that he is still unconscious. I see he’s a bit dehydrated. I’m going to take him to the infirmary and run some tests, get him on an IV. I’ll let you know what I find out. I know you have to stay here,” CB looked John in the eyes with a serious stare and repeated quietly, “You have to stay here. Wraith, John.”

Damn it. John nodded at the doctor and watched helplessly as they took his _panor’eten_ away.

McKay entered the office just as Beckett was leaving and he looked around in confusion. “What happened? Who’s this? Wait, how’d he get here?” He demanded as he pointed at Skaara.

~*~

  


When the word came down from the Control Room that the Wraith were coming into range, Evan leaned back in the chair, hoping the city decided to behave and work with him today. ***Pilot interface incomplete***

_‘No way, you’re not getting your electronic fingers in my brain. Let’s go light today, huh?’_

***Pilot syntax error***

_‘Enable drones,’_ Evan ordered, ignoring the electronic reprimand.

***Drones ready***

_‘Acquire target.’_

***Specify. Three ships in orbit***

_‘The Wraith hive is the hostile, target the hive.’_

***Wraith hive in range in one minute***

Evan waited out the timer a little impatiently, thumping his foot against the footrest and tapping his fingers.

***Target acquired***

_‘Fire, spray pattern beta.’_

It wasn’t the drones Evan fired that ultimately destroyed the hive, that distinction went to the remotely controlled Hrsul cruiser that did a kamikaze run straight at the hive’s control level.

But Evan still enjoyed shooting at the Wraith. He really hated Wraith.

He climbed out of the chair and smiled as Grodin pounded him on the back, congratulating him for his part in the short battle. He needed to head upstairs and relieve John so John could go to Cam. He jogged to the transporter and jabbed a finger at the location he wanted.

The look of gratitude John shot him when he walked into Cam’s office was worth the effort of running all the way up to be here. “Go, check on Cam. I’ve got this.”

John dashed out of the office without a backwards glance.

~*~

  


“You said you’d call me with an update, CB!”

“You were in the midst of a battle, Commander.”

The infirmary was in chaos, so John decided berating CB would only make him mad. “Where is he?”

“Over there. He’s sleeping.”

“Through this racket?”

Beckett rolled his eyes and tugged John’s sleeve. “Come with me.”

“I want to see Cameron.”

Wearily, CB replied, “In a few moments, I need you to see something else first.”

John went to CB’s office and stared blankly at the image on the tablet CB handed him. “What’s this?”

CB reached over and tapped the image. “That is a baby. Congratulations, you’re going to be a father.”

“I’m pregnant?”

“No. Cameron is.”

He could not have been more shocked. He stared at the image on the small screen in his hands and then looked at the doctor. “I don’t understand.”

“I ran the tests three times. I did the scan myself. I did a sonogram, which is what you are looking at. Cameron is carrying. He’s fourteen weeks in,” CB pointed to a dark shape in the corner of the image. “That is an egg sac, where there should not be an egg sac. And that is a fully developed faux fallopian passage, again, where there should not be one. I’ve no explanation.”

“He’s not _keri_.” John was having difficulty processing this. He had never imagined this scenario. “How?”

“I have yet to determine that. The Jirante procedures were fairly standard, everyone had the potential to develop an egg sac, maybe Cameron was borderline and was capable of this all along.”

“And maybe something the city did affected him.”

“I don’t know. I’m flummoxed, John. We’ll figure it out. I wish I had the time to spare now to look into the cause further, but it will have to wait a bit. I’ve over a hundred new patients. Granted, not many are in dire straits, but they do need attention. Cameron is carrying. He needs rest and fluids, he’s both dehydrated and exhausted, so much so that I honestly fear the pregnancy might not hold. Prepare yourself for that, lad. The damage might be done already. I’ve moved him over to a quiet corner. You might want to bring him a music player and earphones. It is a bit noisy here with all these new patients. I really do wish I had time to spare for him right now, but I don’t. Go sit with your _panor’eten_ , keep an eye on him for me.”

Numb with shock, John nodded stupidly and held the tablet out as Carson moved to leave the office. “Keep it; show Cameron, you know he’ll need to see proof when he wakes and you tell him. I have to go.”

“I have to tell him?” John protested, but Carson’s dark scowl made him back down and simply nod in agreement.

John walked slowly over to Cam’s bedside, dragging a chair over with him and sitting down, hard. He was numb. Cameron was pregnant? This was completely backwards, completely and totally backwards. He looked at the gray picture on the screen, tilting it around until he could make out the round head and the bent knees and the feet. Holy shit, it was a baby.

According to CB, Cam wasn’t doing so well. John could see why. He’d been running himself ragged for weeks, endangering his health. All this time, he’d been pregnant. John reached over and grabbed his _panor’eten’s_ hand and squeezed it. He stood up and leaned over the rail of the bed and kissed Cameron’s cheek. “We just can’t do anything right, can we?”

He sat and stared, too numb to do anything else as the chaos caused by the influx of patients into the infirmary roared around him.

He felt a light touch on his head and glanced up as someone moved in beside him. “John, love? What’s happened? I went to find you boys. Evan said you were here and that Cam was ill?” Wendy stroked his hair as she crouched beside his chair. “John?”

“Momma.” He looked into her eyes and then down at the tablet in his lap. He offered it to her, silently.

Taking the tablet and tucking it into the crook of her elbow, Wendy stood, moved to the bedside and caressed Cam’s cheek after kissing him. She looked down at the tablet and squinted at the image, moving the device closer to her face. Then she smiled and looked at John and exclaimed quietly but happily, “John, you’re pregnant!”

He shook his head. “No, not me. Cameron is.”

Her jaw dropped open. “But… I don’t understand, he’s _panor_.” The look on Wendy’s face was probably the same one John had on his earlier when Carson broke the news to him.

John waved a hand around at the crowded infirmary; field medics and volunteers had been brought in to help with this third wave of refugees. “CB has his hands full, but he ran the tests himself. He doesn’t know how or why yet. You can see the egg sac and faux fallopian on the sonogram.”

“I see them. I just don’t know how something like this could have been missed, how this could have happened, not that I’m not thrilled about a baby for you John, I am.” She ruffled his hair and then leaned in to hug him. “But I just don’t understand.”

“He’s not doing well, Momma. CB said…” John scrubbed his hands over his face and leaned forward. He had to hold it together. He needed to be strong for a while. “Cameron is exhausted and dehydrated. CB said we should be prepared; the baby might not make it. He didn’t know, Momma, if Cameron had known, he would have taken care of himself.”

“Shh, I know that, love. You be positive now. With everything else Cameron has been through with SGO, this will be easy. He survived that crash, he learned to walk again. He survived that Kolya person. He has you with him now. He will pull through this too.”

Wendy sat vigil with him for a few hours before going to get John something to eat, since he refused to leave Cameron’s side. Nearby, a heavy piece of equipment fell over with a loud crash as two orderlies tried to move it. The noise woke Mitchell.

“John?” he mumbled sleepily as he twisted and stretched on the bed.

“Right here.”

“What happened?”

“You fell down; you’ve got a case of dehydration and exhaustion.” John leaned over the edge of the bed and held his hand. Cameron squeezed it with reassuring strength.

“Wraith?”

“Blown to hell. All’s clear, we’re safe.”

“Good. That’s good. I shouldn’t be taking a bed; Telford’s sick people need it.” He tried to sit up; John moved to put a pillow behind his back and gently pressed him against him.

John patted his shoulder. “Yeah, well, you’re one of the sick people, buddy.”

“Just tired.” Cameron blinked at him stupidly as John shook his head. He reluctantly admitted, “Okay, I feel pretty crappy.”

“Yeah, well, there’s a reason for that. Are you up to hearing it?”

“Am I dying?”

“No!”

“Then I’m up to hearing it, tell me.”

John picked up the tablet from his chair and handed it to Cameron. “That’s a sonogram.”

“I know what a sonogram looks like, is that a baby?”

“Yeah.”

“We’re pregnant?” Cameron smiled hopefully at him.

Shaking his head, John tapped Cameron’s middle. “Yes, but that’s not me, that’s your belly. You’re carrying.”

“I am?”

“Yeah. CB doesn’t know how or why yet.”

Mitchell stared at the picture. “This is inside me? How big… how long?” Through the bond, John could sense Cameron’s rising excitement; he was happy about this.

He hated to dash Cameron’s hopes, but now was better than later. “Fourteen weeks. Listen, CB said it might not pull through, Cameron. You’re not doing so hot, and this is an extremely risky pregnancy, impossibilities aside.”

“I don’t under… what the hell, John? This is some kind of miracle. We might lose it anyway?”

When Cameron started to blink rapidly, John moved over to the edge of the bed and let the side down, then pulled Cameron into his arms. His _panor’eten_ clung to him, shaking and silent.

When Wendy came back with a tray in hand, John was just settling Cameron back against the pillows. Cameron had used up whatever reserves of energy he’d had left sobbing soundlessly in John’s arms. He’d either fallen asleep or passed out; John couldn’t be certain which it was.

“He was awake?”

“Briefly.”

“You told him? How did he take it?”

John took the sandwich from the tray Wendy offered. “He was as shocked as I was. He got a little upset when I told him he was in bad shape.”

“He needs rest,” Wendy declared.

John rolled his eyes as a steel pan clattered on the floor, sending up a ringing clang. Cameron shifted and frowned, but didn’t wake fully. “I don’t think he’s going to get it here.”

~*~

  
The people that had come with Commander Telford had been pretty damned lucky, as far as Nate was concerned. They’d been traveling without any doctors, only a few people with field medic training to see to the sick and injured. Of the hundred people that had been triaged directly to Medical, only twenty were in really bad shape.

Nate had been pressed into service to help as an orderly. He was helping move people around as space was cleared in the infirmary and the auxiliary infirmary for them. 

“Where are you, Nate?” his _keri_ asked over the radio. Nate checked his watch, he was over two hours late for dinner.

“Helping with the wounded. I lost track of time, sorry Jase.”

Jason grunted in response. “Don’t worry about it, I understand. I was shuttling people back and forth from the Hrsul ships all day. Will you be home soon?”

“I don’t really know.”

“Should I get you dinner?”

At the thought of food, Nate’s stomach rolled violently and he had to stifle the urge to barf. “No.”

“You skipped breakfast.”

“I’ll be fine. Don’t wait for me, you go and eat and head to bed,” Nate told his partner.

“Come soon,” Jase replied and clicked the line closed.

Wendy Mitchell from the mess hall walked past Nate with a tray of food and he caught a whiff of it. He lost the battle with his stomach and looked around in a panic for a bucket or something. He spotted a small sink hanging on the wall and ran to it, barely making it in time before his lunch came up. He heaved noisily, moaning at the stabbing pain this was causing his head.

A cold, wet cloth was held to his forehead and a hand rubbed circles on his back as he heaved again. Damn, how much could possibly still be in his stomach? Slim fingers pressed his wrist, taking his pulse. He leaned down again as another violent spasm make him retch again. The fingers moved to lift the chain around his throat and pick up his dogtags. 

“Sergeant Nathan Stackhouse,” the nurse said to someone as she read his dogtags.

He heard tapping on a datapad, but was too miserable to think about it. Someone else said, “AG-2. He’s bonded _panor_ no notes on his chart, he’s only been in previously for a sprained wrist and a contact rash picked up off world.”

“Nathan?” the nurse holding the wet cloth to his head leaned over to try to catch his eye.

“Nate. Never Nathan.”

“Nate, then. Have you been feeling ill?”

He tried breathing through his mouth so he didn’t have to breathe in the smell of sick. Between panting breaths he answered, “Headache, some nausea, tired.”

Bile rose up and he vomited again, tightly clutching the edge of the small sink for balance. God, how much was left in his stomach? He started to see spots in front of his eyes and his vision darkened at the fringes. “I feel dizzy,” he told the nurse.

The next thing he knew, he was waking up to see Doctor Fraiser leaning over him. She smiled at him. “I see you’re back with us, Sergeant. We gave you a shot for the nausea, are you feeling any better?”

He nodded. “Sorry to add to the work for you, Doc. I was actually trying to help today.”

“Don’t worry about it. We took some blood, we’re running a few tests, since we have you in our clutches,” she gave a very insincere evil laugh.

“I’m fine.”

With a shake of her head, she disagreed with him. “You told the nurse you’ve been having headaches. She said you were vomiting up blood. Now, that might simply be because there was nothing left in your stomach, but I’m unwilling to take that chance when a few simple blood tests will give us some answers. Ah, here comes Lauren with the results. The nurse that had helped Nate earlier came over and held a datapad out to the doctor. She smiled encouragingly at Nate.

After reading the pad, the doctor gave Nate an odd smile and then asked the nurse, “Were these double checked?”

“Yes Doctor.”

“Thank you. Would you go and set up the ultrasound, please?” The nurse nodded and walked away.

Nate pushed himself up to his elbows, frowning at the IV tube connected to his arm. “What’s going on, Doc?”

“I want to do another test, there’s an anomaly with your blood work. Do you feel up to a walk across the way? I can get a wheelchair if you need it.”

“I’m fine.” He tugged the IV line and looked at her as he held it up. “Do I need this?”

Looking distracted as she read the datapad, she replied, “Yes. Hydration will do you good.” She held his arm as he slid off the gurney and onto his feet. He didn’t feel dizzy anymore, which was good. The IV stand squeaked as it dragged along behind them. She walked him over to a station set up with a lot of monitors and machines and patted the exam table. “Hop on up here.”

The doctor spread goop on his belly and pressed a thing to it, smearing it around as she sat at a computer and looked at a monitor as she moved the thing. “What are you doing with that?”

“This is an ultrasound machine; I’m having a look at your abdomen.” She clicked a keyboard. 

After a few minutes, she stood up from the stool. “I’ll be right back.” 

Nate watched her duck into a curtained off patient area, when she emerged, the CMO, Doctor Beckett was with her, reading from a datapad. He nodded and smiled at Nate and then looked at the monitor. “Well, now,” he remarked. He looked at Doctor Fraiser. “Have you told him?”

“No. I figured I’d let you have the pleasure.”

Pleasure? Doctors had something to tell him and it was a pleasure? Fraiser had a weird sense of humor.

“Aye, well Sergeant, you’re carrying.”

Nate was sure he had misheard. He laughed. “Sorry, Doc, but I thought I heard you say I was carrying.”

Both doctors nodded and Doctor Fraiser swung the monitor around so that it was facing Nate and pointed at a little blob. “That’s the fetus. Over here, you can see a shadow, that’s the egg sac, and this shadow leading off from it is the faux fallopian tube. You’re pregnant, Sergeant Stackhouse.”

“I’m _panor_!”

“We’re still testing to figure out how this happened; you are not the only one in this situation,” Doctor Beckett said. He tossed his head to dismiss the nurse, and when she was gone he moved close to Nate’s side. “Now lad, I know this is a highly personal question, but I need to verify something to be sure how this happened. I assume that you and your _keri_ switch positions?”

“Oh, man, Doc!” Nate knew he had to be blushing. “It isn’t against the law. Is it?”

Beckett smirked and shook his head. “No, not specifically. I’ll take that as a yes?”

Mortified, Nate nodded. “I’m pregnant, holy shit! Jason is going to flip out. This changes everything; we never thought we’d have a kid. I have to tell Jason. Wait, is everything okay with it, I mean is it healthy and everything? I don’t want to get his hopes up.” Nate began to grow very nervous. A baby, a kid. He’d been comfortable with things as they were, with Jason unable to conceive because it meant he never had to admit that he was terrified of the responsibility for another human life. His parents had been horrible and he had always feared he would be just like them.

Patting Nate’s foot, Doctor Fraiser replied, “So far, everything looks fine. The sac wall is a proper thickness and is intact. The fetus is perfectly developed. Judging by the development, I’d put you at about ten or eleven weeks along.”

A baby. How could he do this? How could he tell Jason?

“I think I need to throw up again.” Doctor Fraiser got a pan under his chin just in time.

~*~

  
Doctor Beckett had allowed Nate time to collect himself before suggesting that he call Jason. When he told Jason that he was in the infirmary, his _keri_ got upset, Nate could sense it through their bond as much as he could hear it in his voice over the radio.

He heard the clomping of Jason’s size twelves as his _keri_ ran into the infirmary. “Nate?” he said as he approached. His steps were hesitant as he moved inside the curtained off area. “Nate, what’s wrong?”

The doctor had gone to see to someone else as Nate waited for Jason. He looked up into Jason’s face and everything hit him all at once. He burst into tears. 

“Oh, shit, oh Nate, what, baby, what?” Jason wrapped an arm around Nate’s shoulders and pulled his head against his shoulder, holding him as Nate simply bawled and clung to his waist. 

As the flood eased up, Jason gave him a tight squeeze. “You’re scaring me, Nate. You’ve never done this before. What’s the matter? Tell me.”

“I’m pregnant and I’m scared, I’m so scared Jason I don’t know if I can do this,” he replied in a rush.

“Pregnant?” Nate nodded against Jason’s shoulder. “I thought you were sick. I thought there was something wrong with you.” Jason hugged him and pressed kisses to the top of his head. “You scared the shit out of me.”

“I’m pregnant.”

Jason shook with a laugh. “I’m still wrapping my head around that. But you aren’t telling me you’re gonna die, and that was what I was thinking when I came up here. Pregnancy is temporary.”

After a moment, Nate leaned back and looked up at his partner. “A baby. I’ve got a baby inside me.”

Cupping his chin, Jason leaned down and kissed him and then smoothed his hands over his face and back over his head. “It is going to be okay. I promise you, it is going to be okay. You are not your parents, Nate. You are going to be an awesome dad.”

When had his _keri_ figured that out? Nate had never told anyone about his worst fear, not even his partner and best friend. “I’m not sure about that.”

“Look, I haven’t pushed you about this, _panor’eten_ , but now you have to deal with it. I think you need to talk to Doctor Heightmeyer or Doctor McKenzie.” He started to shake his head, but Jason held his chin still. “For me. I’ll come with you if you want.”

Jason was right. He wanted to be a good parent. Maybe talking to someone could help him do that. “Okay,” he agreed.

Doctor Fraiser came in. "Hello Sergeant Markham-Stackhouse." She stuck her hands into the pockets of her lab coat and looked at Jason and Nate in turn. “The important things to remember are rest, hydration, vitamins…”

~*~

  
When Lorne stumbled into the infirmary he was exhausted after the chaotic day and just needed to visit the baby for a minute before heading home. It would center him and give him a peaceful focus. He was brought up short by the noise and chaos. Distracted by the salvage operation, he had completely forgotten about all the injured and sick Telford had brought in with him.

There were a lot of strange faces, people wearing odd scrubs and weird colored lab coats. Evan walked past one nurse and then remembered that after clearing it with Sheppard, Beckett had put a call out to Hoff, and their ally had sent five doctors and fifteen nurses to help them out for a few days. Such was the Hoffan regard and gratitude for what Carson had done to help them with their genetic research.

Evan checked on Little T, after searching for a few minutes to find the incubator relocated to the corner of Janet Fraiser’s office. He said the prayer he said every day, patted the incubator and then went in search of Sheppard and Mitchell. He found Sheppard sleeping in a chair. John was leaning forward out of the chair, sprawled across the bottom of the bed with one arm wrapped around Mitchell’s blanketed foot. It looked like a very uncomfortable position.

“John. John, wake up and go home to sleep,” Evan shook his friend’s shoulder. “Come on, man, Cam wouldn’t want you doing this.”

“Cam?” Sleepily, John sat up and rubbed his face. “Huh? Evan, what’s going on?”

“The joint is jumping around here, but everything is secure. How’s he doing?” Lorne asked as he looked over at Mitchell, sleeping peacefully despite the IV tubes hanging from his arm and a monitor beeping away beside the bed.

Sheppard stretched and looked over at Mitchell. Then he looked at Lorne for a long time, as if considering something. “He’s gonna be laid up for a while; exhaustion, dehydration. And we have a problem.”

“I know. I’ve had twelve marines go out on sick leave in the past few days; this thing is threatening to turn into an epidemic.”

“We can only hope,” John mumbled cryptically. He leaned over and picked up a tablet that was on the floor beside his chair and thumbed it on. He handed it to Evan. “That’s a sonogram from today, and no, I’m not pregnant.”

“This is a baby though?” Evan turned the screen a little and squinted. “Whose scan is this?”

“Cameron’s.”

Evan felt his jaw working, but he couldn’t get the words to come out. “John, this is impossible.”

“Yeah. I know. Beckett has a project ahead of him, figuring out how exactly this could be. Apparently, the same thing happened to Stacks.”

Two _panor_ had conceived and were carrying babies? A thought hit him and Evan muttered, “Oh, shit.”

“What?” John asked as he stood up and took the tablet from Evan.

“He… we… David… sex!” Evan sputtered, unable to form a full sentence to explain his sudden fear.

“Add some words there, Ev, I didn’t get any of that.”

Evan pointed to Mitchell then to John. “Cam told me how you guys… I went off the inhibitors… I stopped doing my injections.”

Rolling his eyes as he realized what his friend was trying to say, John grabbed Evan’s upper arm and dragged him through the infirmary towards Carson’s quarters, which were located off the back corridor. John rang the chime. When Beckett opened the door, his hair was sticking up on end, more than usual, and he was yawning. “Is something wrong?” Dressed in a t-shirt and sweatpants and socks, Beckett was apparently prepared to be woken with an emergency. “Please state the nature of the medical…”

“Test him, CB. Do a sonogram, now,” John said interrupting Beckett.

“What’s the matter?” Carson edged past the men in his doorway and padded off towards the machines waggling a hand to indicate they should follow.

“Neither of us is going to sleep tonight until we know for certain that Evan is healthy,” John said was Evan allowed himself to be hauled around by the arm. He was numb with shock at Mitchell’s condition and the sudden possibility he might find himself in the same unexpected expectant state. Male _panor_ could get pregnant? Who knew that male _panor_ could get pregnant? This was crazy shit. 

“Fine, if it will make you lads happy. Up you go, Evan,” Beckett grumbled wearily as he patted the exam table and booted up the machine.

Sliding up onto the table, Evan looked over at John. “What if…?”

“Let’s just make sure first, okay?” John patted his leg and backed away.

The test seemed to take forever. He could swear it was an hour before Beckett got down to moving the wand thing around and clicking buttons. Standing at the computer monitor, leaning heavily on the table and yawning constantly, Beckett tapped keys and waited for the information to process. “The beastie seems to be working better for me the past few days, it isn’t taking as long for the integrated systems to work” he commented casually to John.

“The city bumped your authorization up a level. She likes you.”

Beckett’s eyes widened and he looked at the screen more closely and then looked over at Evan and up at John.

“Uh oh,” Sheppard mumbled as he looked at the screen and over at Evan.

“Please tell me you’ve stopped taking your injections, Evan,” Carson said as he glanced at Evan with concern. “That would be so very bad for you right now.”

Evan gulped. “Yeah, I did. Am I… me too?”

John nodded and moved close to his side. Evan clutched at Sheppard’s shoulder and looked at Beckett. “How? I’m _panor_ , I’m not _keri_ I thought only _keri_ had an egg sac, Carson?”

He felt lightheaded, this was a shock. He was pregnant?

“Yes. That was so, as far as we knew. Some male _panor_ have been found to have vestigial tissue masses where a sac would have been if they had gone fully over into _keri_ during the Jirante procedures. But to my knowledge, no _panor_ male has ever had a functioning egg sac and faux fallopian tube.”

“Until now. Thank you Atlantis,” John raised his eyes and spoke at the ceiling.

“You think the city’s AI did this?” Evan asked.

“Sequencing repairs. You, Stacks and Cam must have had these vestigial masses, and maybe whatever the AI did fixed them. I don’t know for certain, I’m tired and I’m shooting in the dark here, I’m not a doctor.”

“It’s as good a theory as any, John. Come with me, Evan, I want to do some blood work as well.”

Being a supportive friend, Sheppard sat with him through the tests, though he left to check on Cam once. Beckett said he was only about two months along, though everything looked fine so far.

John offered to walk Evan home, but Evan really wanted to be alone for a while as he got used to the idea. With a bottle of vitamins in his hand, and Beckett’s instructions that he keep hydrated and well rested and eat properly, Evan walked through the nearly deserted corridors on his way back to his quarters.

David was asleep when he got in. He dropped the vitamins on the nightstand and went to shower, needing to wipe the feeling of the infirmary off himself. When he crawled into bed, David murmured in his sleep and immediately rolled over to curl around him. It took a little longer than usual with his thoughts racing as they were, but eventually, Evan fell asleep.

~*~

  
“What’s this?” the shaking of pills in their plastic vial accompanied the question as soon as Evan opened his eyes. David was sitting on the edge of the bed, watching him expectantly. Damned morning person, even Evan wasn’t that awake and chipper in the morning, and he had to run drills with the squads at 06:30.

“Vitamins,” he grunted with a voice raspy with sleep. Rolling to his side, Evan curled his knees up and dragged David’s pillow around to hug it tightly against his middle.

“Oh. I thought maybe you were sick.” He looked at the large letters on the label. “I never heard of PNV before. How’s your headache?” David’s fingers touched near his ear, caressing lightly through his hair.

“It got exponentially worse last night.”

David bent and kissed his temple, then his ear. “How so?”

Rubbing his eyes, Evan sighed and checked the clock. Yeah, there was time for a family crisis before he had to go on duty. He flopped over onto his back and set the pillow back at the head of the bed. “Remember how I mentioned there was something going on with the rash of headaches?”

“But you couldn’t tell me more than that because I don’t have security clearance to know anything else, right?”

“I’m raising your clearance; you’re gonna have to hear this. The city has been ‘fixing’ us.”

David frowned and his hand stilled on Evan’s head. “I do not like the way you said that.”

Evan nodded and closed his eyes briefly against the pain in his head. “Wait for it, it gets better, I promise. The AI took it upon itself to dump something in the water supply to make repairs to what it deemed as viral attacks upon our genetics.”

He opened his eyes to see that David chewed his lip in concern. “So are we all going to get sick now?”

“No, I think those affected are already showing the symptoms.”

David’s hand clamped down on Evan’s thigh and he squeezed lightly. “The headaches and fatigue, oh my God, Evan, you _are_ sick.”

“Shhh, not really. The doctor isn’t exactly sure what’s going on yet, he’s a bit crazed with the people that came in with Commander Telford and hasn’t done a full study on it yet. David, calm down. Breathe, baby. Do not pass out on me.”

David had thrown himself over Evan, hugging him fiercely. Evan sighed and hugged David close. “I’m okay. Mostly.”

“Mostly?” David looked up at him and sniffed.

Taking a deep breath, Evan uttered two words he never in his life thought he would say out loud. “I’m pregnant.”

David looked at him blankly and then smacked his chest. “You’re kidding me, Evan; please don’t mock me when I’m so worried. Stop teasing me.”

“I am not teasing you, I’m carrying. For that matter, so are Cam Mitchell and Nate Stackhouse.”

David slid back off of him, sat up on the bed beside him and stared at him. He tilted his head from side to side a few times the same way the cockatiel Evan’s Mom once had used to when it was confused by a new toy. Or when it had spotted itself in the mirror, it had been a bit of an idiot, that bird. “What are we going to do with two babies?”

Trust David to find the one thing Evan had NOT thought about yet. He covered his eyes with his arm and groaned.

((Chapter 7 is more naughty bits. McKay and Cadman being naughty. It picks up with plotty stuff right after she asks for his help with the EoA thing. If you don't want to read naughty bits, skip on ahead to chapter 8))


	7. Pron, Again!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is NC-17
> 
> Naughty Bits here. 
> 
> Rodney and Cadman naughty bits.

**April**  
Rodney felt a tug on his jacket, which he ignored. The tug turned into a smack on the small of his back. “You have to help me.”

“You said you could do it. You said, and I quote, “Leave me alone McKay and find your own pet project!” So I left you alone. Now, NOW you want my help?” He glanced at her under his arm.

Laura sighed and dropped her hands to her hips and tapped her foot. “I’m asking nicely. I have my hat in my hands and I’m asking nicely, Rodney.”

“Maybe you hurt my feelings when you wouldn’t let me touch your Precious, maybe I’m not going to get over it.” McKay leaned into the basin compartment of the Ancient washing machine and dropped a pair of socks into it, backed out, closed the door and hit the activation key. It started up smoothly, which was a marked improvement in operations, so he turned around and leaned against built-in machine, giving Cadman his full attention. “Yeah, you hurt my feelings.”

She snorted and glared at him. He stared at her, completely unmoved by her hostility. He couldn’t wait to get his hands on the Eye of Aphophis, also known as the AoE. He was just wondering how far Cadman would go to secure his assistance.

“I’ll blow you for it, in your lab, where anyone could walk in.”

It was his turn to snort. “Like that’ll happen.”

“Really. I will.”

He bent over and stared into her eyes, taking great pleasure in talking dirty to her, trying to shock her. “Little Miss Do it In the Dark? Please, you’d run screaming if I whipped it out in the daylight. Do you even know what a cock looks like, what my cock looks like?”

Flushing red, she bit her lip and breathed heavily but did not look away. “I am not a prude, Rodney. I just prefer privacy.”

“Prefer or need? I haven’t quite figured out which it is.”

She threw her arms around his neck and surged forward, slamming her mouth over his. He responded immediately, embracing her and returning the kiss with equal fervor. “You’re the one…” she broke off kissing him to say, “…that will be brought up…’ she kissed him again. “…on charges for this.”

“Adds to the excitement, doesn’t it? You wouldn’t really do me in the lab, would you?” He kissed her neck and bit her behind the ear, sucking lightly, leaving a mark under her hair, where no one would see it unless they were looking for it.

“I would, if you really wanted me to. I mean it Rodney, I need you on this project, please help me.”

He leaned back and grinned, “Here, now, if I asked?’

In response, she went to her knees and unzipped his trousers. When she pulled him out, she hesitated for a second. He saw her gulp as she stared at the warm, hard cock in her hand. Then she closed her eyes and took him in her mouth. She seemed to be okay, once she had her eyes closed; it wasn’t like she hadn’t done this before, in the dark, in her quarters. She was very good at this. He groaned and fumbled his hands back and leaned against the washing machine for support. 

“Damn, Laura.” He smoothed a hand over her hair as she moved on him, pleasuring him. “So good.” 

She opened her eyes, and pulled off to look up at him, and then she smiled. “Yeah?”

“Oh, yeah. You can have whatever you want.”

She smirked. “Even if I zipped you back up right now and didn’t finish?”

He laughed and caught her chin, rubbing his thumb over her lips. “Yeah, even then. You are such a brat.”

“You like that about me.”

“I love that about you, oh, yeah, harder,” he gasped as she resumed sucking him off. 

The machine behind him made an odd noise and began to shake. The vibration against his back grew more and more intense, and he got an idea. He reached down and tugged Laura up by the shoulders. Confused, she stood, her hand still stroking him. He slid his hand down and undid the buttons of her off-duty trousers, letting them pool down around her ankles. With a puzzled look, she kicked off her sneakers and stepped out of the trousers. He pushed at her panties and she blushed crimson, but stepped out of them as well.

He wrapped his arms around her waist and lifted her. “Legs up, around me.”

She obeyed. He hadn’t expected her to, but she did. He turned them around and braced her back flush against the machine. He wriggled slightly to get into position and slid up inside her. Her eyes widened at the intrusion and then again as she felt the machine’s vibration against her back and ass. “Oh wow Rodney.”

“Isn’t this better than under the covers with the lights off?”

“I should hate you for this. You’re a maladjusted pervert, McKay. You’re an … oh yeah, just like that… exhibitionist.”

He chuckled against her neck as he bit her again.

“Rodneyyyy,” she whined, clasping her hands to his head and holding on as he thrust into her while the malfunctioning machine thrummed through a wash cycle. She came first, screaming his name and clinging to him limply until he finished. She slid to the floor and gathered her clothing, dressing quickly. 

When Rodney showed no signs of doing the same, she huffed in irritation and waved her hands at his open trousers and exposed cock. “Rodney, please, anyone could come in.” 

“Okay, okay.” He stuffed his cock back into his clothing and attempted to make himself presentable again. “I think there’s something off in the timing on this machine, but I don’t think it actually interferes with the function. I think I’ll leave it for now. You said you had an idea on converting the energy for the EoA? Let’s check the specs and see what we can come up with.” He held a hand out to her and dragged her to her feet again after she finished tying her Keds.

She twisted her lips and said in realization, “You would’ve helped me anyway.”

He pinched the tip of her nose. “Of course I would, but seeing you beg was too good to pass up.”


	8. More BOOM!

**April**  
Rodney and Laura argued about the numbers for the EoA they had been discussing when they got to the lab and put them up on the whiteboard. Miko tried to help, but gave up and left them to it. Zelenka sat behind his computer, watching and occasionally muttering in Czech. 

“I’ll go get the piece, you can see it for yourself; it won’t fit if we change this.” Laura tapped the board with her dry-erase pen and stomped out of the lab.

“You should be more careful, Rodney,” Radek said as McKay walked past on his way to refill his mug with some almost-not-quite-but-good-enough coffee. 

Sipping the brew, Rodney asked, “Careful with what?”

“Washing machine in area four is still on repair list for reason. You are not first to discover symptoms of malfunction. Is good thing security feed is routed here, instead of directly to Sub Commander Lorne’s office, no?”

“You little Peeping Tom!”

Radek shrugged and waved a hand towards his computer. “I erased the last three hours of security footage, you owe me favor.”

“Completely erased?”

Zelenka waved a data drive. “Will cost more than just favor. I heard you have chocolate, which will go very nicely with new berry liquor I have made, I am willing to trade.”

Shocked, Rodney stared in amazement. “You… sneaky, blackmailing, voyeuristic, opportunistic bootlegger! I had no idea you were capable of this.” Crossing to stand next to Zelenka’s terminal, Rodney put on his best puppy-dog eyes and whispered, “Will you be my new best friend?”

~*~

  


“If you could, would you tell people, Rodney?” Laura twirled her finger in a circle on his chest. “I hate keeping us a secret.”

He picked up a chunk of her hair and played with the ends. “I’ve almost told Sheppard half a dozen times, Teyla too. She wouldn’t care about the law,” he rushed to add.

She bit her lower lip and leaned up on one elbow, “I want to ask you something, don’t get mad.”

“I won’t get mad, what is it?”

She actually looked nervous, his bold-as-brass little marine was afraid to spit out a handful of words. “Is it a lot different having sex with a bondmate?”

“Uhm. Well,” he rubbed her shoulder. “Yeah. It’s more intense, you feel more. You know more without having to say anything. The hormones act like a drug, sometimes if it’s really intense, like being high or drunk.”

She looked completely crestfallen. “Oh.” She rolled away and curled on her side, facing away from him. “I’ll never be enough, no matter what I do.”

“Laura, hey. I didn’t say better, just different. You didn’t want me to lie, did you?”

She shook her head. “No, of course not. Goodnight Rodney.”

He tried to pull her up against him, but she went stiff and cold on him. Dropping his hand away, he let her shift over to the edge of the bed, as far from him as she could get.

He probably should have lied. Or maybe pretended to be mad.

Miserable, Rodney wished he could talk to Sheppard. He wished he’d told him about Laura long before this. But that would have meant asking his friend to be complicit in breaking the law. 

Patting Laura’s back Rodney whispered sadly, “Goodnight, Laura.”

~*~

  


Carson was going to fall over with exhaustion and find himself in one of his infirmary beds. After Evan Lorne had turned up carrying, he had sent a message to Doctor Porter over at the Conservation Project, promoting her to head of the project and asking her to come see him as soon as possible. He needed to hand this over to someone else temporarily while he worked with the sick and injured filling his infirmary and the overflow in the gymnasium two levels up.

When she came in, very early in the morning, he explained to her very briefly about Mitchell and Lorne and told her to see what she could figure out, trusting her to lay the groundwork for the research they had to do. He handed her a tablet with the data files on it and wished her the best of luck and apologized for dumping it all on her head in such a manner. He had surgeries scheduled all day, he couldn’t spare any time for anything else that wasn’t a life threatening emergency.

He had run tests on himself, and gave that data to Porter, after ascertaining that he wasn’t pregnant. With the way things were going, he wouldn’t have been surprised. With the city’s interference, other impossible things were happening, why not a spontaneous pregnancy in a heterosexual male _panor_ that was not currently sexually active?

As he scrubbed in for an emergency surgery on one of Telford’s people, he had to force his mind away from the genetic puzzle that he would have dearly loved to work on. But he had patients that needed his attention. The others would have to wait.

~*~

  
Looking up from the book he was attempting to read, Cam pulled the earbuds from his ears and shut the music off as a young, dark haired woman came over to his bedside. “Commodore Mitchell? Good morning, we haven’t met yet. I’m Doctor Porter. Am I disturbing you?”

“Nope, not at all. I’m awake and I’m bored for the next few minutes. Your name is familiar.”

“I’m one of the researchers on the Conservation Project. Doctor Beckett called me in to start working on this puzzle we seem to have uncovered yesterday.”

He waved a hand at his middle. “Some puzzle. I’m freaked out and my _keri_ is a nervous wreck over it.”

“I believe you are soon to be joined in that state by every male _panor_ in the city that believed in the fundamental science given to us by the Jirante. How are you feeling physically, Commodore?”

“Call me Cam, Doctor Porter. The fatigue is the worst part. I can’t keep my eyes open for more than fifteen minutes at a stretch. My back hurts, and the headache is still there.”

“The headache might be hormonal; we’re going to be testing for that. Has the severity changed? Mine has tapered back in the past week or so.”

“It isn’t as bad as it was. You’re _panor_?

She nodded. “Unbonded. So, this must all be a surprise to you.”

“To say the least.”

“Do you mind if I get a small blood sample?” She dug around in the bag slung over her shoulder until she found what she sought and then waved a small kit at him.

He held an arm out. “Be my guest.”

She carefully prepared his arm and stuck the needle in after giving the traditional vampiric warning; “Small pinch.”

As she cleaned everything up, putting her kit along with his blood sample into her bag, she looked at him with open curiosity. “I’m sorry to ask such a personal question, sir, but to be sure, I have to ask. You, erhm, well; you were the receiving partner, so to speak, in the recent past?”

He smirked as he put his head back against the pillows. “Yeah, Doc, I have been, in the recent and not so recent past, up to and including fourteen weeks ago. I have no doubt in my mind as to how the genetic material ended up where it ended up. It’s why it made a difference when it got there that’s the mystery.”

Porter blushed to the roots of her hair. “I needed to be sure, to eliminate other questions. Thank you for your corporation, Commodore.”

“Anything for the cause, Doc,” he said as she backed away and left him alone.

John had not been by yet. Through the bond, Cam could sense that his _keri_ was still asleep. He must be exhausted; John never slept past seven o’clock, and it was going on eight. Sleep seemed like a good idea. He yawned and put his head back.

~*~

  
“Small pinch, sorry sir,” a nurse apologized as Cam opened his eyes and scowled at her.

He saw that a third bag of fluids had been hung on the stand at his bedside. “What’s in that one?”

“An antibiotic.”

“Why do I need an antibiotic?”

She gave him a practiced smile and said, “I’m sure one of the doctors will explain. I believe Doctor Fraiser is speaking to Commander Sheppard now, I’ll tell them you’re awake.” She absconded with his blood.

John followed Fraiser into the curtained off area where Cam had been sequestered. Before John locked down and blocked him out, Cam picked up a wave of stress from his _keri_. “Good morning, Commodore. How are you feeling?”

“Since when do you call me Commodore, Janet? My head hurts less. I’m still freaked out.”

She gave him a sympathetic smile. “The constant hydration should help with the headache soon. I think Doctor Heightmeyer will be in to talk with you this afternoon. If not today, she’ll be by tomorrow.”

“What’s with the antibiotics?”

Fraiser glanced over at John and then moved closer to Cam’s bed. “Your counts are off, I’m afraid you have the start of an infection. I’ve had a chance to look at your sonograms and the other tests that Doctor Beckett ran yesterday.” She handed him the tablet that was in her hands. “This is the scan that has me very concerned. The wall of the placental sac is very, very thin here and here and here,” she pointed out the spots she meant him to see.

“That’s bad?”

“It is. I’m sorry, Cam, I wish I had better news. This could go either way at this point. The wall could thicken, we’ve been giving you megadoses of vitamins in the hydration in the hopes of helping that along. Since the sac is still developing along with the fetus, there’s a good chance this might correct itself. But the sac could rupture spontaneously and we would have to be concerned about peritonitis at that point.”

“I could die?” He’d heard of it happening; male _keri_ dying when they couldn’t get into surgery quickly enough after a sac rupture. Standing beside Fraiser, John went pale and began to shift from foot to foot. “We’re monitoring you very closely, Cam. We don’t want this to go bad, we’re doing everything we can to keep you safe.”

“And the baby?”

“And the baby, we want everyone to be safe.” She patted his tummy affectionately and clasped John’s arm briefly before she collected her tablet and left them alone.

When she was gone, Cam looked at his _keri_ and admitted, “Now I’m scared. I was just weirded out and nervous but now I’m scared shitless.”

John walked over and hugged him, and Cam buried his face in John’s shirt and clung; he didn’t care how it looked to John or anyone else. He had a baby inside him and he and said baby were in danger of dying and he was scared. He whispered, “I want my momma.”

“It’s okay, I know. She’ll be here in a while; she’s baking for the lunch shift.” John kissed his head and held him as he shook for a bit. Cam hadn’t even been this frightened when Kolya had him prisoner.

“I don’t want the baby to die,” Cam mumbled against John’s shoulder. “I didn’t expect this but I don’t want it to die. What if this is our only chance to have a child, John? What if it is and I screwed it up and it dies because of me?”

“Shh, Cameron, it’s okay,” John leaned back and kissed his forehead. “You’re in the best place you could possibly be right now. One of the best friends I’ve ever had, the best doctor in two galaxies is taking care of you. You’ve got a slew of people checking on you all the time. They’re pulling out all the stops for you, Cameron. If there is any way for this baby to make it, they are going to find it.”

That was a lot of words for John. Somehow, it worked to comfort him. He leaned back against the pillows, trying to calm himself. A thought occurred to him as he looked across the infirmary and noticed something missing. “What about the Ancient incubator?”

John let him go, but held onto his hand as he sat on the edge of the bed. “I asked Fraiser about that. She said the problem with the placental sac would prohibit a transfer to the unit. The sac would be too weak; the baby wouldn’t survive being moved. She said if you manage to carry until the time when Parrish and Lorne’s baby is scheduled to come out of there, you’d be mostly out of the woods anyway.”

Cam was disappointed; it had been a hopeful thought.

“Speaking of Parrish and Lorne, Ev came by to see you last night.”

“I was asleep, I guess.”

“Yeah you were. Did you know he’d stopped taking his injections?”

Cam let out a small chuckle. “I had a suspicion that he might, we had a conversation that led me to believe he was considering it.”

“So, in an indirect way, you’re responsible.”

“For what?”

“Lorne’s pregnant too.”

Mitchell didn’t know if he was surprised, relieved that he wasn’t the only one, or concerned for their friend. “How’s he doing?”

John waved a hand dismissively at Cam’s worried frown. “He’s only eight weeks in, and he takes better care of himself than you do. He isn’t dehydrated, malnourished or clinically exhausted. CB sent him home with a bottle of vitamins. He’s fine, all things considered. Stackhouse is carrying too.”

“Yeah, Carson told me about Stacks last night. Doctor Porter came by and asked me a couple of questions, jabbed me with a needle and stole some blood this morning.”

“CB asked me to try to get her a higher clearance level in the city’s systems. She’s going to be working on this. She’s good, Cameron, CB trusts her. And she’s a really sweet person.”

Cam yawned, the damned fatigue was annoying. “This is all the city’s doing.”

“We’ve already determined that, yes.”

“Sometimes I hate your girlfriend.”

~*~

  
Allie stared at the computer screen in front of her, comparing the results of Lorne, Stackhouse and Mitchell’s blood work to Beckett’s. She found the _panor_ markers easily enough. She was able to pull up the results of the last round of standard tests the men had been through at SGO and checked today’s numbers against those.

She did find a marked increase in their PSG levels, and there was no KSG in their bloodstreams. That was good, she supposed. They hadn’t suddenly morphed into some kind of mutant _keri_.

The note she had from Beckett the previous night said that the city had dumped something in the water to correct anomalies. Had Mitchell, Stackhouse and Lorne been borderline _keri_ with vestigial egg sacs? Maybe the vestigial egg sacs had been more than just non-functional lumps of tissue.

Both Mitchell and Lorne had been fully scanned months before E Day when they’d been rescued from the Genii. Porter put a request out to the network to get the results of those scans. Maybe there was something there. She was surprised that the ping back and the files came within a minute. It seemed that Beckett, or possibly Sheppard, had gotten her authorization bumped up a few notches.

Focusing on the scans of both men’s abdomens, Allie found what she was looking for, more than vestigial, there were shadows that appeared to be fully formed egg sacs visible on the scans of both men. How many other _panor_ males had this condition?

She made a note to have all _panor_ males scanned for this ASAP. It might be awhile before it could be done, with the influx of emergency cases up at Medical. She ran a query to find how many male-male _keri_ and _panor_ pairings they had in the population. It came back as one hundred and twenty six; a higher percentage than she had expected.

Using her new authority as head of the Conservation Project, Allie composed a message and had it sent out to all the _panor_ that were in a male-male relationship, requesting that they come in to have a simple medical test run as soon as possible, especially if they had been experiencing headaches or fatigue. If there were others out there in the same condition as Mitchell, Stackhouse and Lorne, it was better to find them sooner than later. Male pregnancies were risky, undetected ones even more so, since the males in question might not seek medical care for any complaints and a minor pain could be an indication of a major problem that could turn deadly if left untreated. Commodore Mitchell was a prime example of what could go wrong without proper attention. She hoped everything worked out, though Doctor Beckett had not been very positive when he discussed the case with her. 

Calling Medical, she requisitioned the use of one of their three sonogram machines. Luckily, Allie knew how to operate them; she’d worked her way through college in a women’s health clinic and had garnered a lot of experience there. She didn’t need to pull a nurse or tech away from Medical to help her.

The delivery of the machine came with the bonus of some hugs and kisses from Jonas when he brought it down to her. He was helping her set it up when someone cleared their throat to get their attention. A nervous looking man in a pair of coveralls stood there.

“Hello, may I help you?”

“I got a message to come here to be tested for something, so I came,” he replied in lightly accented English.

Allie smiled and beckoned him in as Jonas patted her hip and slipped out of the room. “Yes, come in please, I’m just getting set up. I’m Doctor Porter. What is your name?”

“Nells, Nells Larson. Is this about the headaches?”

“Yes, that’s part of it. Have you ever had a sonogram, Mr. Larson?”

So went the rest of her day. By the end of the day, she had tested fifty nine _panor_ , twenty one of them had fully formed egg sacs, though only one was carrying. She had immediately sent that man up to Medical with instructions to see Doctor Fraiser, who was more experienced as an obstetrician than Doctor Beckett and had contacted her to say she was taking point on any pregnancy cases. Allie was just about to shut down the lab for the evening when an officer turned up at the door. He was only the second military person of the day, the rest had been civilians.

“Hi!” she called. “Come in, please.”

“I could come back tomorrow, if you’re finishing up,” he was soft spoken. She judged him to be in his forties at least.

She shook her head and waved him towards a chair, joking lightly, “Please, you’ll make an even sixty for today; it will bump up my ratio and make my boss really happy. I’m Doctor Porter.”

“I got a message from your department when I logged in for my duty shift. Is this about the headaches?”

“Yes. I assume you’ve been suffering with them for the past few weeks?”

He nodded. “It’s gotten a little better, but my _keri_ wanted me to get checked out anyway. I figured it can’t hurt, right?”

“Right. Now, what is your name, so I can mark you off the list?”

“Steven. Steven Caldwell.”

She moved him over to the proper list and smiled warmly. “Uh-huh, got ya, Sub Commander. Have you had a sonogram before?”

“Uhm, no. Should I have?”

“Not necessarily. I’m going to need you to remove your shirt and lie down on that exam table. I’ll put some gel on your belly and run a device over you. It will take a picture of the soft tissues in your abdomen.”

He stood and went to where she pointed. “Okay.”

“Have you had any other symptoms, fatigue, muscle pain, change in diet, nausea, or odd cramps?”

He nodded. “Yeah, all except for the cramps.”

That made Allie pause, most of those that had come in didn’t have many other symptoms. “This is going to be cold, I’m sorry.” She squirted some gel on his abdomen and he squirmed for a second as she spread it around. “A little pressure, let me know if I hurt you, okay?”

“Okay.”

There it was; another positive in the lower right quadrant for an egg sac. She captured the image and continued scanning, and caught the edge of a placental sac. Caldwell was carrying. She bit her lower lip and captured the image, then took a few more for his medical records and forwarded them immediately to Doctor Fraiser. “Okay, Sub Commander, I’m done here, but I’d like you to come up to Medical with me.”

“Is something wrong?”

“I’d really like Doctor Fraiser to check you over.”

He dressed quickly as Allie shut everything down. She felt a bit cowardly, leaving the explanations to Doctor Fraiser, but she wasn’t a medical doctor and she shouldn’t be giving patients any kind of diagnosis of their condition. The least she could do was walk him upstairs, after giving him a scare like this and not explaining why.

“Did you find a reason for the headaches?” he asked.

She looked at her feet and then said cautiously, “Yes.”

“Am I gonna die from it?”

She patted his arm and said in a rush, “No, really, no. I’m sure everything is going to be fine. Doctor Frasier will explain everything that is happening to you.”

When they stepped out of the transporter on the Medical level, Allie was struck with a blinding pain in her temple and her entire body went numb. She raised a hand to her forehead and vaguely heard Caldwell calling, “Doctor Porter? Doctor Porter? Hey, Help! We need some help here!” She felt arms catch her as she started to sink to the floor.

~*~

  
“Allie? Come on, sweetling, open your eyes,” a fuzzy and far away voice coaxed in her ear. Strong arms held her. She recognized the scent of the soap that was on the skin close to her nose. Jonas.

Something sharp was waved under her nose and she jolted awake. “There we go, that’s better,” Jonas said, holding her cradled against his chest. “You gave us a scare there, Allie.”

“I don’t feel so good, Jonas. Let me go…” she pushed at him frantically and rolled to the side, retching. He shifted and held her hair back as she emptied her stomach onto the floor of the corridor. If she didn’t feel so horrible, she’d be mortified and red-faced with embarrassment at the situation.

She groaned and turned, groping blindly for Jonas. He caught her and lifted her into his arms. “Into a bed with you, my little love. You need a doctor.”

Allie glanced over to see Sub Commander Caldwell walking alongside them. He looked a little pale. She held a hand out to him and he caught it and gave it a squeeze along with a small smile of commiseration.

“I made a mess,” Allie moaned to Jonas. 

“Already taken care of, Shelly is there with a mop. Don’t worry yourself about it.”

She sagged against Jonas as Janet Fraiser came out to meet them. “Sub Commander.”

“Doctor Fraiser,” he replied, releasing his hold of Allie’s hand.

“Would you go and have a seat over there for a few minutes, Sub Commander Caldwell? A nurse will take a blood sample and give you some juice while I check on Doctor Porter,” Fraiser pointed to a chair.

Jonas settled her on a gurney and moved to the side, holding her hand. “When did you last eat something, Allie?” Doctor Fraiser asked.

“Lunch. I had a sandwich.”

“Were you feeling nauseous today?” Allie shook her head as Janet checked her eyes and looked in her throat. “Do you have a headache?”

“Yes, just like everyone else.”

“Lie back, I’m going to check you over. Mister Quinn, if you’d step outside the curtain, please? I’d like to try to maintain a modicum of privacy, despite the situation.”

Torn, Jonas looked at Allie, but she nodded and tossed her chin towards the curtains. He closed them as he left.

“So, that’s still going strong, is it?”

“Yes.”

“Good. You were both a little lonely, you deserve some happiness.” She tugged Allie’s shirt up and squirted some gel on her belly.

“This is a waste of your time. Jonas isn’t _keri_ , I haven’t bonded.”

Janet snorted lightly. “Allow me a little payback on behalf of the sixty guys you did this to today. Besides, you’ll provide a baseline for the female _panor_ when we start testing them.”

Allie closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths as Janet ran the wand over her tummy. Her stomach was still jumpy and now she had an awful taste in her mouth.

“Uhm, Alison, are you positive you didn’t go through a bonding?”

“Definitely, I’m sure I’d have noticed.”

Janet cleared her throat. “Well, you’re pregnant. I’d say about sixteen weeks.”

“I can’t be.” The doctor turned the screen so Allie could see it. She couldn’t deny the evidence right in front of her nose. “I’m pregnant. How am I pregnant?”

Doctor Fraiser’s smile was so wide; it threatened to split her face. “Alison, if you honestly haven’t been with a _keri_ and you’re pregnant, do you understand what this means?”

“It means I’m gonna have a baby.” Allie stared at the screen and raised her fingers to the wriggling lump she saw there. The baby was turned in such a way that she couldn’t tell if it was a boy or a girl, but sixteen weeks was pretty early to judge anyway. “Jonas!!!” she bellowed.

He tore through the curtains almost immediately, skidding to a stop on the tile floor. “Yes, Allie?”

“I’m gonna have a baby. We’re gonna have a baby!”

He looked at Allie in utter stupefaction for a few moments before he smiled and wrapped his arms around her. “I didn’t think that was possible,” he said to Doctor Fraiser as Allie giggled and clung to him.

“Nor did I. But the proof is right there, if you want to look. I’m going to tell Carson, and then I have to check on Sub Commander Caldwell and deliver his news.”

She ducked out of the curtain, leaving them the illusion of privacy.

“Are you angry?” Allie asked, watching his face as she chewed on her lower lip.

Jonas hugged her tightly. “Angry? No, how could I be angry about this? This is wonderful.”

“You’re not gonna think it’s so wonderful when you’re stuck full of holes as they try to figure out how you managed this medical miracle.”

~*~

  
Steven looked up nervously as Doctor Fraiser came into the office the nurse had put him in. She looked at him kindly as she sat down at the desk. “You’re probably confused.”

“Yeah, Doc.”

“You’re _panor_ and you also possess a pretty strong expression of the Ancient Gene.” He nodded, this was not news to him. The gene meant he could fly the ‘jumpers, and he loved that about Atlantis. 

“The city’s AI has begun a program. It detected genetic anomalies in the Ancient Gene holders, and set out to correct them. A biological compound was added to our water supply a few months ago. We’re now starting to see the results of the AI’s tampering.”

She slid a tablet across the desk to him and tapped an image on the screen. “That’s from the scan Doctor Porter took this evening. What you are looking at is a fully formed egg sac.”

“I’ve got an egg sac? Like a _keri?_

“Exactly like a _keri_. She tapped a key and the image changed. “That’s another scan of your abdomen, Sub Commander. You’re carrying. I’d estimate you’re at about eight weeks, judging by the fetal development.”

He stared across the desk at the doctor, who was telling him that he was… pregnant? “Crap, Doc. Just, crap. This is all wrong and backwards. Why didn’t the city fix Paul? He’s the one that’s been sterile all these years. Why did it do this to me?”

“We’re not certain yet. We’re still running tests; this has all just come to light.”

“I… what am I going to tell Paul? This is gonna kill him.” Back when they had first gotten together, Paul sometimes cried himself to sleep at night; he wanted a baby so much. But no pregnancy had come of their bonding. “They told him he’d never conceive.”

She reached over and clasped his hand. “You don’t have to tell him today. Give it a little time, get used to the idea. I’m sure you’ll find a way to break it to your _keri_.

“I can’t lie to him. I can’t keep this from him, this is too important. This is huge! Can you tell him with me? He isn’t going to believe me. Not after all these years. Not after all the problems we’ve had.” Steven had just gotten Paul back into his life after a long separation; E Day had brought their estrangement to an end. He hoped this wasn’t going to screw things up between them.

“Of course, call him in, I’ll show him everything, explain what has happened.”

Caldwell tapped his radio. “Paul? Can you meet me in the infirmary; I’m in Doctor Fraiser’s office in the back of the left wing. No, I’m not entirely okay. Could you come here, please?”

He looked at the images some more, still not entirely comprehending that this was happening to him. They were too damned old to be making babies at this stage of the game. 

Doctor Fraiser left the office and came back with a vial of pills and handed them over. “Those are vitamins. Take one of those every day. You need to get a lot of rest. No heavy lifting at all. Do not lift anything bigger than a housecat. You should drink a lot of water. Don’t skip meals. Have a few small ones if you can’t handle a large sitting. I have to tell you that your age is a concern, Sub Commander. This is going to be a big strain on your body.”

He nodded. He asked her the first question that popped into his head. “I guess you’ll have to cut it out of me?”

“Yes, when the time comes, we’ll do a cesarean section. Don’t worry; we’re very good at that. Doctor Beckett has a seventy five percent save ratio of the egg sac and faux fallopian channel, so there might be a chance for another pregnancy in the future.”

The thought did not exactly comfort him. “Are there others like me? Other _panor_ … wait, that’s what the testing was about? There are others, aren’t there?”

“Yes. You’re the fifth that we’ve identified. We’re concerned for the health of both fathers and babies, so we wanted to detect the pregnancies as soon as possible.”

He laughed, shook his head and blushed. “I told Paul we weren’t the only ones doing it backwards, I guess now he’ll have to believe me.”

They heard rapid boot falls and Paul appeared in the doorway, flushed and out of breath. He rushed in and went to Steven’s side, running his hands over his partner’s face and neck, checking him for wounds. It made something in Steven’s gut tighten up, to see the obvious concern there, to see that it was still really there. “What’s wrong? What’s happened?”

“I can’t tell him,” Steven said to the doctor in a pleading voice, looking past his _keri_. “Sit down, Paul; listen to what Doctor Fraiser has to say. Please don’t get upset. Doctor Fraiser, show him.”

The emotions that flashed across Paul’s face as he held the tablet in his hand and stared at it nearly broke Steven’s heart. His poor _keri_. It was like the kid next door got the red racing bike he had wanted for Christmas. 

“We’re having a baby, Steve,” Paul whispered finally and looked at him. “We’re gonna have a baby.” The smile was watery, but it was a smile. Paul carefully placed the tablet on the desk and then dropped to his knees and hugged Steven around the middle. 

“Major Davis, I’d like to run a few tests on you before you leave, if you don’t mind?”

“Yeah, of course,” he mumbled into Steven’s belly. 

Grateful that Paul apparently didn’t hate him for this, Steven rubbed his partner’s back and began to worry about what in the hell he was going to do now. 

Their bond wasn’t strong enough anymore to share emotions through it when they weren’t actively having relations, but Paul had known him for twenty five years; he could read his body language. He tried not to let his inner turmoil show.

Paul stood up and Steven followed his _keri_ across the infirmary to the machine Doctor Fraiser indicated. She drew blood and then took a scan of Paul. She declared that everything was fine with him and charged Paul with keeping an eye on his _panor’eten_. 

Paul took the doctor’s words to heart. He took Steven’s hand when they left the infirmary and hovered over him when they got back to their quarters. Wanting a stiff drink in the worst way, Steven had to content himself with a cup of fruit juice. He bit his tongue and didn’t snap at Paul as his _keri_ stayed close to him, staring at him.

“I’m so happy. I don’t know how it happened, but this is such a blessing. This is what we always wanted, Steven.”

He didn’t want this. But saying so would crush Paul, so he kept silent.

~*~

  
Beckett stopped at Cam’s bed, checking the monitors around him. “Well, lads, last night, we had two _panor_ males carrying, against all odds. Now, we’ve got five.”

“Good news, right?’

“It gets better. A male _keri_ came in for testing this afternoon at the insistence of his _panor’eten_ and is carrying.”

John smiled, “A _keri_ pregnancy, the first in months, that’s good. So, the ‘repairs’ aren’t all bad so far.”

“And…” Carson held up a finger, “A _panor_ female is carrying.”

“So, normality, pre-Hrsul incursion normality, is returning?” Cam asked.

Carson chuckled and shook his head, “Not quite. This is an unbonded _panor_ female in a monogamous relationship with a Langaren male.”

That made John sit up straight in his chair, “Allie? Allie Porter?”

“Good guess.”

“Not much of one, she’s dating that Langaren guy that works up here, Jonas, isn’t she?”

“Aye. So, this very wide smile you see on my face is caused by relief, gentlemen, because there’s hope today that we didn’t have before. It’s a small wee step from Langarens to Athosians and other Pegasus natives, isn’t it? I, for one, have had a very good day, and I’m going to take myself off for a dram of scotch to celebrate and go to bed happy.”

Maybe I’ll join you in that shot, John laughed as he stood up and started to follow Beckett. He stopped suddenly and weaved on his feet, catching himself on the edge of the bed as he stumbled. “Uhm, CB? I don’t feel so…” 

With lightning fast reflexes, Beckett managed to get a plastic tub pressed to John’s chest before he threw up. Cam sat with his lips pressed together and a frightened look on his face as he met the doctor’s eyes and watched Beckett rub John’s back as he vomited. 

“John, when was the last time we scanned you?” Carson asked when John pushed the tub away.

“A little over three weeks ago.”

“Come on. Let’s check you over.”

Cam moved to get out of the bed, but Beckett stopped him with a dark look and a warning finger pointed at him. “You stay there.”

“Do you think he’s carrying too?” Cam asked, worried.

Holding John’s upper arm in his hand, Carson replied, “Well, you were trying pretty damned hard to get him that way, weren’t you?”

Twenty minutes later, John stumbled back to Cam with a sheepish look. “Well?” Cam demanded as John climbed up onto the bed and snuggled miserably against him. 

“Is it still twins if they’re ten weeks apart?”

With a snort, Cam hugged his _keri_. “Well, we asked for it, didn’t we?”

John hugged him, “I thought I dodged a bullet.”

“No such luck. So, four weeks along, huh?” 

“Yeah about four weeks. It’s just a little blob on the sonogram, it was too early the last time they checked me. This is gonna be so weird, Cameron.”

Cam kissed the top of his head and mumbled, “Looks like we’ve got ourselves a little baby boom.”


	9. Falling Pieces

**March**  
“Good morning, Momma.”

Wendy looked around the refrigerator door and smiled in greeting. “There’s my favorite _keri!_ How are you this morning?”

John moved into the kitchen and leaned on a food prep counter. “I’m good. Cameron wants a muffin, if you have any.”

She smiled and pointed to a tray on an industrial cooling rack. “You’re early enough to beat the scientists. There’s some almost-carrot on the bottom racks and cinnamon coffee-cake on the top. He likes either, but you already know that.”

Bending to snag a muffin from the lowest rack, John replied, “I’ll take one of each and we’ll split them. He’s asking for you, when you have time.”

“I’ll be up as soon as the breakfast rush is over. How is he otherwise?”

John chuckled and set the muffins on the counter. “About the same as yesterday.”

“What is it, John?”

“What’s what?”

She set the bowl she’d taken from the fridge on the counter and walked towards him. “You’re fidgeting. You’ve got something to tell me. Out with it.”

He looked around at the kitchen. There were strangers working here, milling about, but no one was paying any attention to them. “I don’t really want to talk about this here.”

“If it’s the place you’re worried about, then talk to me, John. It’s just a room; one is as good as any other.” She reached out to rub his arm, bent at the waist to look up into his down-turned face and coaxed, “John?”

“Okay, yeah. Well, see, it turns out I’m carrying too.” He shrugged and continued to stare at his feet. Telling Cameron had been one thing, but saying the words out loud to other people was proving to be weird. 

Without saying anything, Wendy just pulled him into a hug and held him until he relaxed and hugged her back. As usual, Momma knew how to make him feel better. The only thing she said was a whispered, “I love you,” as she kissed his forehead when she let him wiggle away. 

The calm feeling lasted until he got almost all the way to the infirmary. Then he started thinking about pregnancy things again and the panic started to creep in.

~*~

  


Cameron was asleep when John got back to the infirmary. He set the muffins on the rolling table and slid it over his _panor’eten’s_ lap. John could wait for breakfast, he wasn’t too hungry. He set down the mugs of fruit juice Wendy had made him take as well. He wanted coffee. He had been craving it for weeks, but when he and Cameron had started trying to conceive, he had cut it from his diet. Even the Pegasus substitute they had found for coffee had too much caffeine in it, as did most of the teas that John cared to drink. So, juice - it was good for babies.

He dropped down in the chair beside the bed and rubbed his face with both hands. Babies. Good Lord, if everything worked out, they were going to have two of them. A small person was growing inside him. His hand drifted down to clasp at his belly. Diapers and feedings and crying and milk and spit up and no sleep; John was not cut out for this, not at all. 

Cameron was snoring; so he was likely going to sleep for a while longer. John needed to walk. On the way out of the infirmary he saw one of the nurses, Angie, and he told her he was just leaving for a short time, if Cameron woke and happened to be looking for him.

At some point today, John knew he’d have to make an appearance in his office. With Mitchell down on sick leave, things would need to be shuffled around. His assistant Paul Davis was good, but even he needed supervision now and then. John had the thought to go to his quarters to get his running shoes as the urge to run hit him, but then he remembered that he was limited to walking now because he was carrying a baby. Everything had suddenly become a high risk; his diet, his exercise, even his work. 

What the hell had he been thinking, agreeing to carry? He couldn’t do this. He really couldn’t do this. He started walking, unsure where he was going, no destination in mind. His mind was in turmoil, he couldn’t stop thinking about everything that could go wrong. The changes his body was going to go through frightened him. The way his and Cameron’s lives were never going to be the same set him on the edge of panic. He ended up running anyway, despite his intentions not to, and despite having boots on.

When he realized he was growing short of breath, he slowed to a jog and then stopped. This was not good for the baby. That thought started the whole cycle of alarm over again. He made a left turn and then a right and was at Teyla and Ronon’s door. He knocked lightly out of habit; Teyla preferred that people knock instead of using the chimes. 

He must have looked like shit. As soon as Teyla opened the door, her face fell and she opened her arms to him. He stumbled inside and for the second time that day let himself be held and soothed by one of the women of his family. He was normally not a hugger. Hormones sucked. She led him in and urged him to sit down on one of the big pillows that were strewn around the floor that they used in lieu of actual furniture. She sat beside him and began to knead at the muscles in his neck. 

Teyla gave him time to relax and calm himself. Some part of him had known he needed that, and he had sought her out because she was the one who could always guide him to a serene place. He could have gone to Momma, but he didn’t want to ruin her joy with his doubts and fears. 

“I can’t do this, Teyla,” he whispered raggedly as he leaned forward and pressed his fingertips together. “I think I made a big mistake. I jumped in without thinking it through and now I think I can’t do it.”

She slid around to sit cross-legged in front of him. She would listen and not judge. He could talk to her about it and she wouldn’t think him cold and hard and careless. She wouldn’t be hurt by his words. Unlike Heightmeyer, who would try to get John to work out everything for himself as she led him in mental circles, Teyla would give him her honest opinion. “What have you done, John?”

Of course she didn’t know yet. No one outside the command staff and Medical knew yet. “I… there hadn’t been any new _keri_ pregnancies and the only prospective _keri_ left in the city from before E Day were Kate Heightmeyer and me. So I thought it would help, I thought it was right. I love Cameron.”

She reached out and clasped his hands, pulling them away from his face and squeezing them as she said soothingly, “No one who knows you can doubt that, John.”

“I did it for him too. I was being selfish and I had to stop. I thought it was something he wanted. I’d been selfish making him promise. I was wrong holding him to it. ”

“John, what have you done?”

His words began tumbling out of control. There were very few people he trusted to see him like this, very few ever had. “I don’t know how to do what I need to do, what Cameron needs me to do. I thought I could handle it, Teyla. I wanted a kid too. I thought I could deal with this, but now that it’s happened I’m so damned scared. I don’t know what to do. ” 

She unfolded herself and knelt up, taking his face in her hands as he started to panic again. As usual, she calmly sorted through the muddle and found the source of his distress amidst the mess of words. “You are with child, John?”

Mortified at his loss of control as he found himself blinking back tears, he nodded. “I’m afraid. I should be thinking of Cameron, he’s in so much worse shape than I am, but I’m selfish and I’m scared.”

“I admit am very confused, John, as I do not have the entire story yet. But it is certainly a fearsome thing, having a child growing within you. It is not selfish to be anxious, especially given the things I have heard about your people and the risks to you.” 

As he began to tremble, she pressed her forehead to his and held him still. “Breathe with me, John. Take slow breaths and just focus on the sound of my voice. Breathe in and breathe out. Yes, that is good. Very good. Slow breaths.”

Incrementally, the muscles in his back and neck started to loosen and John felt the terror subsiding as Teyla slowly talked him through a calming exercise. Eventually, after what might have been five minutes or maybe an hour - he couldn’t be sure - she released her hold on his face and sat back on her heels. 

“Now that you are calm, tell me why Cameron needs your concern.”

“He’s pregnant too. The city did something to our genetics. Male _panor_ can conceive too now. It’s all messed up.”

“I see. This is so strange to me, the way your people bear children. But why is this particularly bad for Cameron?”

John’s explanation poured out in a rush. “He didn’t know he was carrying and he wasn’t taking care of himself at all and now CB is pretty sure he’s going to lose the baby and he’s so weak, Teyla. It’s almost worse than when he came back from the Genii, because then he was healing and getting better, but now the baby is growing and he’s going to be in more danger every day.”

He grabbed for her, catching and clenching one slim hand between both of his. “I’m scared for him. I’m scared for me. There’s a baby inside of me, Teyla. I don’t know if I want this anymore.”

She patted his knee. “You do. You would not have agreed to move forward if you had not desired to have a child.”

“It’s too late to turn back. I have no idea what to do with babies. I didn’t think that far ahead. What do I tell them when they ask questions? I’m not ready to be a parent, Teyla.” He flopped over onto the pillow beside him and bit his knuckles. 

Teyla laughed lightly and patted his leg. “You can do this, John. Would you like some _dira_ juice?

“No. Yes. It’s good for the baby.” 

“Yes it is. And it tastes good too.” Teyla looked over John’s shoulder and smiled. “Someone has been waiting to see you, John.” She beckoned with her hand and John heard the patter of tiny feet. Torra. In his upset, he had completely and totally forgotten the child’s presence. 

“Unca?” Tiny hands tugged at John’s shirt as Torra climbed up and over him. In Torra-talk, “Uncle” had become Unca. He, Rodney, Lorne and Cam were all Unca, as far as Teyla and Ronon’s daughter was concerned. “Unca Cam?”

“He’s not here today, baby,” he replied on a slightly shuddering breath. He let the little girl slide down to the pillow beside him, putting a hand out to catch her should she fall off the cushion onto the floor. There were rugs, but she might bang her head. John had figured that out when she had started sitting up and would topple over suddenly without warning. “How’s my girl?” John asked, tickling her tummy and getting giggles from her. 

“I’m two,” she held up two fingers in a ‘V.’ She was not such a baby anymore. Torra’s hair was now to her shoulders and she walked and ran instead of waddled. And she talked. How Ronon and Teyla, two such stoic and silent people could produce a child that talked a stream of babble at a speed and volume to rival Rodney McKay astounded John. 

When Teyla came back with the mugs of juice, Torra was expounding on the topic of fish. She leapt up and ran to her room and returned with a drawing of a fish, done in green crayon on a recycled piece of newsprint paper. Her babysitter had taken her to the zoology lab and she had seen fish recently. John stroked her light brown hair as she chattered on about fish at great length. He just nodded and said ‘uh-huh’ a lot, the conversation seemed to require no input from him in order to continue; his mere presence was enough.

He sipped at his juice as Torra grew tired of her story and ran away to bring more toys to show him. By the time he had drained his mug there was a collection of them around the pillow where he sat and he was feeling much more like himself. He looked up at Teyla and smiled. “The healing power of toys.”

“You are feeling better.”

“Yeah. Thank you for putting up with me and my meltdown. I’m sorry I just showed up and dumped on you.”

“Do not be sorry, John. You are always welcome to come and talk with me. You were there when I was in need, and when Ronon was in trouble; I could do no less for you. You and Cameron are family. You must come back when Ronon is here and talk with both of us more about what is happening, when you are able.”

“I will. Hey, Torra, I have to go. Come and give me smooshies?”

Running over to him, she threw her tiny arms around his neck and rubbed her nose against his. “Esmo smooshie,” she declared as she did it again and giggled. 

“Who taught you Eskimo smooshies?” he asked as he tickled her belly and planted a wet smacking kiss on her cheek.

“Unca Cam,” she replied. “Again, Unca John?”

He tickled her and kissed her, inhaling the sweet scent of an Athosian floral soap in her hair. “You smell good enough to eat, Torra.” He mock-bit her neck and belly before letting her run away giggling like a tiny madwoman.

Teyla walked him to the door. “Come again later. I wish to visit Cameron, would I be permitted into the infirmary to see him?”

He nodded. “Of course. He might not be up to Hurricane Torra, he’s very quick to tire, but I know he’d be glad to see you.”

Briefly pressing their foreheads together once more, John left. He wasn’t at a hundred percent, but he was more centered than he had been.

~*~

  


After fielding questions from the staff on his way to his office, John regretted going up there before going back to see Cameron. Of course the whole staff knew something was wrong; the Overseer had face-planted into the carpet yesterday. ‘He’s doing okay, the Doc’s got him on some IV hydration,’ seemed to satisfy most of the questions.

Lorne was waiting in his office, already at work at John’s desk. He looked up and gave John a limp smile. A quick thought tossed at the city had the door closed behind John and the windows shaded for privacy. “You okay?”

“Freaked out.”

“I know the feeling, I just blubbered all over Teyla,” John confessed and dropped into the chair in front of his desk. When Lorne looked at him with a raised eyebrow, John added, “She gave me juice. How’s David taking it?”

“Better than I am. He’s become obsessed about what we’re going to do with two babies.” 

John slumped in the chair. “Yeah. That’s about where I’m at right now.”

“Huh?” Evan squinted at John, who looked down at the floor. “Oh, shit John, you too?”

He nodded. “Found out last night.”

“Well, that’s sort of good; it means the _keri_ are getting back to normal, right?”

“Yeah, I guess. Ev, what the hell am I gonna do with two babies? I wasn’t sure what to do with one.”

Lorne rolled his eyes and leaned back in his chair. “I’m going to let you and David suss that one out, one of you can get back to me with a list, okay?”

He wasn’t going to get any sympathy from Lorne. Good. He needed someone that wasn’t going to let him whine, Evan was good like that. He had Momma and Teyla to coddle him if he felt the need. “What do we have on today’s disaster agenda, other than our imminent population explosion?”

“Stores is going through the salvage from Telford’s ships. Cadman was wriggling in her chair when she reported in earlier, apparently, there was some heavy-duty ordinance aboard. I told her you would be displeased if she blew anything up without you there to watch.”

“Indeed I would. What else we got?”

“People-wise; two hundred and seventy army, eighty one marines, fifty two members of various law enforcement bureaus, and sixteen navy crewmen that were on leave in San Diego and got stranded when their ship was called to emergency duty up the coast and left them behind. The remaining four thousand, six hundred and thirty three refugees are civilians. No medical personnel among the lot.”

Lovely. Five thousand new mouths to feed and there were still not enough doctors to go around. “ _Keri_ and _panor_?”

“Eight bonded pairs. Three unbonded _keri_ , sixteen _panor_. According to Telford, the _keri_ are a mess, in his opinion all three need psychological counseling.”

“Have you moved on that?”

Lorne shook his head. John reached up and tapped his radio. “Sheppard to Doctor Heightmeyer.”

“Yes, John? How are you?”

He smiled at the way she managed to convey ‘I’ve been waiting for your call’ into five words. “You heard we had a new influx of refugees?”

“Yes, Doctor Fraiser informed me.”

“There are three _keri_ that I would like you to see as soon as possible. Commander Telford has some serious concerns for their mental health.”

She made a noise of concern. “I assume they are with the others going through channels?”

“Where are they?” John asked Evan.

Lorne hit a few keys. “Looks like Telford kept them separated. They’re still on the Hrsul ship.”

Smart man, that Telford, John’s estimation of the commander went up a notch. “Currently on the Hrsul cruiser out on the pier, Kate. Would you like an escort?”

She laughed lightly. “There aren’t any Hrsul aboard, right?”

“No, not anymore. With the way Telford packed people and supplies into every nook and cranny, there wasn’t room for a duck to stow away.”

“Maybe one of the security people could walk me over? I’d hate to get lost.” John heard the nervous tone in her voice. The strangers would make her skittish; he’d learned that about his psychiatrist. It had come to a surprise to him to find out that even mental health professionals had their hang ups. An unbonded _keri_ , Heightmeyer had a few of her own. 

Lorne tapped on the desktop to get John’s attention. When he looked, Lorne had typed into his datapad _’Ask her if she wants Scott. Tell her Stackhouse is on the sick list, he’s her usual escort.’_

“Your usual detail is on the sick list today, Kate. Could I send Captain Scott?”

“I know him, that would be lovely John, thank you,” he heard the relief in her voice that someone she knew would be coming to get her. 

“We’ll have him contact you for where to meet, expect him to call soon.”

She cleared her throat. “I was in to see Cameron last night. Under the circumstances, I hesitate to offer congratulations yet. You must be very worried.”

“For more reasons than you know, Kate. I’ll be in to see you later; we’ve got some issues to discuss.”

She laughed lightly. “If you’re volunteering to come and talk to me, I am worried. I’ll meet you in your office after I have seen our new _keri_.”

And while she still had an escort with her to bring her upstairs. John thought it might be time for the doctor to address this problem she had. He wondered if he could convince her to talk to Doctor McKenzie. “That’ll be fine. I’ll see you later. Sheppard out.”

He tapped the radio again, “Sheppard to Telford.”

“Yes, Commander?”

“Our staff psychiatrist, Doctor Heightmeyer, will be over to check in with your stray _keri_ within the hour.”

He laughed. “You sure don’t waste any time, I was just speaking to Sub Commander Lorne about that.”

“Not when it comes to this kind of issue. She’s particularly expert at working with fragile _keri_. I would ask you, as a personal favor, to go easy with her.”

“Don’t break the doctor. Understood, Commander.”

“Just Sheppard or John will be fine.” Telford technically outranked him by time in rank; the least he could do was offer the man the privilege of calling him by name. “How is your resettlement going, Commander?”

Taking the offering of familiarity, Telford responded in kind, “Call me David, John. It’s a little crazy over here. Most of the people with beds opted to stay in them until your officers get the majority of the mess straightened out and new quarters assigned. We’ve got all hands helping to sort the salvaged equipment and supplies at the moment.”

“I’ve seen the pictures of the mess that got dumped on the pier. I appreciate that your folks are helping with that.” The two Hrsul cruisers had been completely stripped to the bare bones before they had hurled them at the hive by remote control. It had been Sam Carter’s idea. All of the stuff that had been pulled off the Hrsul ships had been dumped on the south pier. It was a huge mess. They hoped to find some of the parts for repairs around the city that were dearly needed.

Telford snorted. “Your science people were adamant that everything come out. They even yanked the engines off one of the ships when they linked the pair of them together. They were quite thorough in their destruction in such a short amount of time.”

John could only imagine the way that went down. “Every wire and circuit is like gold these days, since we haven’t started manufacturing anything yet. We’re low on component resources for a lot of stuff.” The city was like a giant dragon’s hoard, they were sitting on piles of stuff waiting to be utilized.

“Understood. I’ll keep working on clearing the pier then, sir?”

“If you would. We’ve got a bit of a health crisis going on and I’m down some key people, having a flag officer working down there might help motivate things and keep progress steady.”

Evan made a note and flipped it around towards John. _‘Telford is a bonded _panor_. Warn him about headaches.’ ___

“Our records have you listed as a bonded _panor_ , David. Is your _keri_ with you?”

The line was silent for a moment. “Karen didn’t survive the first attacks.”

“My sincerest condolences on your loss,” John said automatically, though he meant it.

“Thank you. She was a special woman. I miss her very much.”

“If you start to suffer any headaches, go to Medical immediately. We have a bit of a thing going around, it’s affecting _keri_ and _panor_ primarily.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. Would your Doctor Heightmeyer be a tall blonde traveling with a soldier in tow?”

John looked at Lorne and held a hand over the mic pickup near his cheek, “Did you send Scott already?”

“Yup,” Evan gave him a cheesy grin, the one that told John he was very satisfied with himself and his latest arrangements.

“That sounds like her; I’ll leave you to work things out.” 

Telford signed off and John looked at Lorne expectantly. Evan slid a tablet across the desk and John read down it, authorizing things wherever necessary. A lot of the paperwork they were doing was from Cameron’s desk, he realized. It made him sad that they were forced to do all of this again, shifting the Overseer’s responsibilities over to him and portioning out responsibilities. He had hated sitting in his _pano’eten’s_ chair when Cameron had been missing last year; he did not expect to like it any better now.

“At least this time you can talk to him, ask him his opinion on things,” Evan said into the silence as he looked at John. 

“Stop reading my mind.”

Lorne pulled a face. “Well, stop thinking so hard, you make it too easy. I’ve got a list started of the stuff that needs to be trickled down. I didn’t know when I started writing it up that I needed to work around you too, so I’ll be making some adjustments.”

“Crap. Three of us from Command potentially on sick leave at the same time. Okay. Let’s evaluate what we have and start shifting stuff around.” John looked at the list and then at Evan. “With Caldwell out of the picture now too, I am not too comfortable leaving the city under either Davis or Marks’ command.”

Scratching his head, Evan frowned. “Marks is the next in line.”

“He’s not ready, not for all of this, especially not in an emergency. Telford outranks _me_.” John sat back and crossed his arms. He had no idea what kind of mental shape Telford was in. The man had lost his _keri_ , and been living hand to mouth on the run for over a year. He’d dragged his refugees across the galaxy to get here; he had to be a bit worn at the edges. Heightmeyer would need to do a full evaluation on him to be sure he was truly fit for duty before John started shoving responsibilities at the man. The way Evan twisted his lips told John his friend agreed with him.

An idea he had been mulling over seemed the best option now. John reached up and tapped his radio. “Jack O’Neill, are you on coms?”

“Only because I like talking to my _keri_ while she’s working. Whadda you want, Sheppard?”

John grinned at the terse response. “Would you come up to Command, please? I have coffee. The real stuff.”

“Bribery will get you everywhere, Sheppard. I’ll be there in twenty. I take mine black and sweet.”

Evan was smirking at him as he guessed what John was up to, and said in a sing-song voice, “He’s gonna say no. He always says no.”

“Shut up, I have to try.”

~*~

  


When Jack came in, he went straight for the couch and sagged onto it, dropping his crutch beside him on the floor. He looked at Sheppard expectantly and held out a hand. John passed him the mug of coffee.

He sipped it and sighed with delight. “This is a good bribe. A very good bribe. Which tells me the situation must be dire. I heard Mitchell took a dive yesterday, what happened?”

John pulled a chair up and stared at the Marshal, his former commanding officer, now retired. He was retired at his own insistence, not due to any official SGO commands made before SGO ceased to be as a viable entity. Forced to agree to his demands, Cam and John had let him be; Jack O’Neill had done enough for the cause, had sacrificed more than enough. He still had full security clearance, and he did volunteer time in the chair when he was bored, or wanted to annoy McKay, the former usually sparking the latter.

“We’ve got a situation, sir. The city’s AI - you know how she is - took it upon itself to fix the genetic anomalies that it detected in Ancient Gene holders.”

“Don’t call me sir. I hate this already. Does this have something to do with the headaches?” Jack sipped his coffee and scowled, though at what John said, not at the coffee. He liked the coffee.

“It does. We found out that there’s a direct correlation between gene holders and _keri_ and _panor_.”

“What kind of correlation?”

“90% of the Ancient Gene holders are either _keri_ or _panor_.”

Jack tipped his head thoughtfully and nodded. “That’s a definite correlation. So, what did the AI do?”

“Back in September, she dumped a biochemical agent into the water supply, we think she has also been doing a bit of genetic manipulation through the interfaces with key gene holders. It might explain why those with the strongest expression of the gene are turning out to be the ones most affected, at least so far.”

“Damned stupid Ancient machines. I assume this was done without authorization from any of us?”

John nodded. “It fell under an infection protocol in the city’s programming.”

“So this is why we have killer headaches that hate Tylenol? What is the damage?”

“Our hormones are askew, according to Fraiser’s theory. The engineered virus the AI infected us with is doing a reworking of some of the changes the Jirante made.”

Jack turned the coffee cup around in his hands a few times as he digested the information. “Why did Mitchell keel over?”

John took a deep breath; O’Neill’s reaction would be a gauge for how the rest of the _panor_ and _keri_ were going to take this news when they announced it. “He’s pregnant.”

“No shit?”

“No shit.”

“Huh,” Jack sat back and stared into his coffee cup, he looked distinctly uncomfortable when he asked, “ _Panor_ are _keri_ now?”

“No. But we have identified a number of _panor_ males with vestigial egg sacs that are now fertile. We’re still testing the population.”

The mug was held out and John passed it to Evan to top off. “So I guess we’ve got some surprised _panor_?”

Lorne snorted as he passed O’Neill the refreshed mug. “That’s an understatement, sir.”

“What was the percentage of male-male pairings here, thirty or something?” O’Neill asked, sipping the coffee. 

“Roughly twenty-five.” John could practically see the wheels turning as O’Neill processed the information.

Jack nodded. “How many pregnancies are we talking? It can’t be the whole population, I would imagine the majority of _panor_ rarely switch up.”

“We started testing the _panor_ that were in a male-male pairing first since they are most at risk. As of this morning, we have identified nine _panor_ males carrying, and two female _panor_. Four more _keri_ and two unbonded female _panor_ have come in as well.”

Jack held up a hand, cleared his throat for attention and stared at Lorne as he recited the numbers. “Wait, unbonded females are getting pregnant?”

“Yes. Apparently, with whatever the city did to fix us, the chemical bonding might not be an essential element to reproduction anymore,” John replied.

“Holy crap, this is big.”

John smiled at Evan. O’Neill had apparently caught up with them as to the scope of the situation. “Very. The AI might have inadvertently helped us along in our issues with human population; our society might not die out completely in a few generations.

“Okay, while I appreciate being read in on this, I suspect it isn’t because you just want to spread the news and picked me as your test subject.”

“No, it isn’t. Our three ranking Command officers are all carrying.”

Looking from Evan to John, Jack smirked and pointed his finger at each of them in turn, “You guys?”

Nodding, John replied, “Yeah, and Caldwell too. And CB is already on my case about shifting the workloads around. There’s a danger that any one of us could end up in the infirmary at any time. I know this is a lot to ask. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t a real emergency. Please Marshal, can I count on you to step in if something happens to Evan or me?”

Jack leaned back on the sofa and looked at them intently. “Retired.”

“I’m not disputing that. But you are the most qualified to take the reins. We’ve got good people, really good people here. But none of our administrators have actual command experience. If the Wraith attack; I need to know that someone with battle experience is giving the orders.” John held his breath; he didn’t want to start handing down ultimatums. Marshals, in his limited experience, reacted negatively to ultimatums.

“This is a backup plan, right?”

“Yes, just in case we need it. Hopefully Cameron will be on his feet soon. None of us plan on taking any unnecessary risks. We’re all at different stages; thank heavens, so we should have staggered leaves when the time comes.”

O’Neill sighed and rubbed a hand over his short hair. “My _keri_ is going to laugh her ass off at me. She said I wouldn’t be able to live on a military base and stay retired. I do this, I lose a bet; she said I wouldn’t make it to Hope’s first birthday before I was up here working again.”

Biting his lip to refrain from any comment that might piss off O’Neill, John simply nodded and gave a helpless shrug. O’Neill sighed again and conceded. “Fine. My kids live here too. I don’t want them eaten by Wraith. I’ll be your backup plan. Copy me on any pertinent reports and inform me of any important meetings. Important meetings, Lorne, do not waste my time,” he jabbed a warning finger in Lorne’s direction.

“Yes, Marshal.”

“You owe my _keri_ a month’s dessert rations if I have to come up here and work, Sheppard. Help me up,” Jack grumbled as he held an arm out. He passed his empty mug to Lorne. “Fill that to go.” Hauling Jack up to his feet, John waited until he was steady and had a firm grip on the crutch Lorne handed him before letting go of his arm.

As O’Neill left, moving with more speed on one leg than some people moved on two, John slowly sat in his chair and gave a heavy sigh of relief. “He said yes.”

“I can’t believe you talked him into it.”

“Well, like the man said, his kids live here too. I’ll gladly give Sam my dessert for a year if he saves our asses.”

~*~

  


Kate Heightmeyer tapped the glass beside John’s door and peered at him, framing her face with her hands in a childlike way that made John snicker as he waved her in. “Hullo, how’s my favorite shrink?”

“Doing well. How’s my favorite kook?”

“Kookier than usual, actually. Sit down, Kate; I’ve got a lot to tell you.” John gave her a shorter version of what he and Lorne had told O’Neill, since she knew most of it already and had already been to see Cameron. She sat back and listened, nodding and making concerned faces now and again.

“I’m carrying, Kate,” he finished, “I’m one of the ones affected.” He had not met with her since he and Cameron had decided to try to conceive, so this would be news to her. She knew of his fears about carrying and his _panor’eten’s_ promise to him.

Tapping her fingernails on the edge of John’s desk, she blinked in surprise and asked kindly, “Very unexpected. How are you coping with that?”

He shrugged and leaned back. “Not very well. I’ve had one major breakdown today; thankfully Teyla talked me through it. I’m fine as long as I don’t think about it too much, or if I take myself out of the equation.”

She shook her head. “You cannot continue to cope like that John. You’re part of this. Everything you feel is valid. Do not set aside your needs for what you think your _panor_ wants or needs.”

“You saw him, Kate, you talked to him. I was trying to get pregnant, I expected this news eventually; he didn’t. He was totally unprepared for this. Right now, at this moment, he needs me to keep it together while he falls apart. You can’t deny that.”

She bit her lip and reluctantly agreed with a brief nod of her head. “But?” she asked, urging him to continue.

“But I’m so damned worked up about this, my hands shake when I think about it too long. I find myself doing the breathing thing Teyla showed me every five minutes. How can I be strong for Cameron if I’m falling apart?”

“What frightens you the most?”

He did not have to think about the answer, he blurted it out immediately as it was uppermost in his mind. “That Cameron might die. That something will go wrong. That the placental sac will rupture and he will die.” John ran his hands through his hair and stared at her.

She leaned forward and rested her arms on her knees. “The instances of that are rare. It only happens when surgical intervention is too late. I believe the window is three hours after the sac ruptures. Where is Cameron right now?”

“In the infirmary.”

“Given where his bed is today, and the number of doctors and nurses in the infirmary, how long do you think it would take someone to notice that he is in distress, if he did not call for help?”

“Three minutes, maybe five.”

“How long would it take for Doctor Beckett to get to him, once he was alerted?”

She was talking him down in stages, he recognized it, but he knew he needed this so he went along with it. “Ten, maybe fifteen minutes, twenty if he left to go to the mess hall to eat, which he usually doesn’t do when he’s got patients.”

“Cam would have medical attention within half an hour, wouldn’t he?” 

“Yeah. Yeah, he would.”

“Do you think perhaps your fear is a little extreme under the circumstances?”

“Maybe. CB doesn’t think the baby is going to pull through. He didn’t tell Cameron. I’m not supposed to tell him. I hate keeping stuff from him; it sets my teeth on edge. I’ve been blocking him out through the bond until I can get my shit together again.”

“Perhaps Carson feels that telling him would have a negative effect on his outlook and his recovery.”

“That doesn’t make me like it any better.” John tried to change the subject. “How are the new _keri_?”

She frowned at him, recognizing the tactic as she knew him so well by now. “I’ll let you slide for a few minutes. We’ll come back to this. They are fragile. Two lost their _panor_ in the attacks. The third was abused in the past, and had apparently been in hiding when soldiers found him. I’ve spoken with Doctor Fraiser; we’re going to start a course of medication to see if it helps them. How does the potential loss of your child make you feel, John?”

He snarled at her, “Unfair question.”

“A totally valid question; answer me, John.”

“It’s not a child yet.”

She leaned forward and frowned more deeply. “Don’t bullshit me. It is to you. You’ve called it a baby. In your head it is a baby. It’s not ‘the fetus,’ or an ‘it -’ you are calling it a baby, John.”

He glared at her for a good two minutes. As usual, she waited him out. He finally snapped, “I feel like I failed.”

“More. How exactly is this situation a failure?”

Damn, he hated her sometimes. But he kinda loved her too. “I’m the parent. The parent is supposed to protect the child. If the baby dies, I failed. Can we do this another time, Kate? I have a shitload of work on my desk.”

“No. I want to do it now. How could you have protected the baby?”

“I should have taken better care of Cameron. I’m supposed to take care of him, I’m his _keri_ that’s my job. I let him run himself down, and now he’s sick and the baby is going to die.”

“Who runs Atlantis? Who is ultimately in charge here, John? Is it you?”

He snorted and sat back. “No. Cameron is the Overseer. I just run the military.”

“How long is your average workday? Not your actual duty shift on paper- how long do you and Cameron put in on a normal day?”

“Ten to twelve hours, I guess. Depends on what’s going on.”

“So during the workday, he sets the schedule, makes the decisions. How often do you give him orders?”

“I don’t usually give him orders, he gets his back up at orders, he’s pure _panor_ like that, I make suggestions.”

She leaned forward again, “Does he follow them?

“Sometimes.”

“Did you know your _panor’eten_ was pregnant?”

“I had no way of knowing that, no one did.” Shit. She had circled him around again and he was caught.

She smiled triumphantly and sat back. “If you had known, if you were aware that he was ailing, you would have taken him to the infirmary and had him put on IVs and given ‘round the clock care, wouldn’t you, John? I believe that is exactly what you did as soon as you found out, isn’t it?”

“I hate you sometimes.”

“I know, it means I’m doing my job,” she gave him a cheery grin. “Now, what was your nightmare about last night?”

He sat up, startled. “Do you have a surveillance camera on me or something?”

“No, but you’ve got dark circles under your eyes and your _panor’eten_ is in the infirmary, and you’re prone to nightmares, so I deduced that you hadn’t slept through the night,” she said, ticking off the items on her fingers.

“Hate you.” 

“Talk to me. Do I need to remove you from duty and put Lorne in charge?”

John laughed, “He’s not much better off than I am right now; we’re a pair of freaked out basket cases.”

She stared at him silently, the stare that would make him wiggle in his chair if he had to put up with it for too long. He secretly thought that Heightmeyer could give the Genii a few pointers about interrogation techniques.

“I don’t know what I dreamed about. Babies, I guess.”

“Talk to me about babies.”

“What about them?”

She chewed on her fingernail as she stared at him. “Do you like them?”

“I was never around them much.”

“You’re ditching. Answer the question, John.”

He shrugged and picked up a tablet stylus on his desk and started to tap it. “I like Torra and Hope, they’re the only babies I was ever really around, the only ones I’ve ever held.”

“Tell me something you like about them. Anything.”

“I like the way Torra’s hair smells. And the way she giggles. Hope grabs my finger and gnaws on it. She smiles a lot. I like the way her lips move like she’s sucking something when she isn’t.”

She nodded and waved her hand. “Something else.”

“I like how Torra talks a mile a minute and doesn’t say anything, but she doesn’t care if I’m listening or not. I like how happy she is when I stop to say hello for five minutes, it doesn’t matter what kind of crummy day I had, she always smiles and laughs at me and hugs me and I feel a little better when I leave.”

“Are you afraid to hold Hope?”

“Not really, no. I was afraid to hold Torra at first. I thought I’d drop her.”

Crap, there was a point to this, Kate was circling him again, he could tell by that little smile she just made. He’d learned long ago not to try to anticipate where she was heading and to just answer what she asked, it was simpler that way, and it hurt less in the long run. “So, you got used to being around the babies, and holding them?”

“Yeah, and when they cried, I gave them back to their moms.”

She tilted her head and looked at him. Damn, he’d given her a lead, something to dig into. “Why?”

“Their moms know how to make them stop. I have work to do, Kate, can we be done now?”

“Lorne cleared your schedule for an hour. How did their moms know how to make them stop?”

John threw his stylus at the glass wall he shared with Lorne. When Lorne looked up, Sheppard made an extremely rude gesture at him. The sneaky bastard just smiled at him. Sometimes, John hated him too, but not really. Before Cam had come into his life, Evan had been his best friend. He turned back to Kate. “I don’t know, they just do. They hold them and rock them and bounce them.”

“Do you think women are born knowing things men don’t?”

He gave her a dirty look. “Don’t go there, Kate. That’s a stupid, old fashioned, close-minded, sexist argument.”

“Do you?”

He shifted in his chair. “No. I believe in equality.”

“Is there a secret manual handed out in the birthing room?”

“I’ve seen books; mothers can read books… ah shit. Okay, you’ve got me. Yes, I can read the books too.”

She was gracious in her triumph, smiling lightly at him as she tipped of her head. “Parenting is a learning process, John. You’re going to learn as you go. You’ll know what sound means your child needs to eat, or what body gesture they make when they’re sleepy and need to have a nap. Believe me; you’ll learn what you need to know. You’re not alone; you’ve got Cameron. That makes a big difference, having two parents.”

He stared down at his hands and asked the question that had been on the tip of his tongue for a while. “When do I stop being scared?”

“I can’t answer that.”

“No fluffy zen stuff to share with me like; ‘you never stop being scared?’”

She smirked at him. “On some level, I suppose every parent has fears for their child. But I think you mean a different kind of fear.”

“Yeah.” He took a deep breath as he thought about what was really bothering him. “The whole pregnancy thing has me spooked. It’s a person, growing inside me, Kate. Babies were not meant to grow inside men. This was done to me; the Jirante changed me without my consent. It isn’t natural and I cannot get past that. I know I agreed to this, but I think I might have made a mistake, leapt into it too quickly. Look at me…” he held his hands out, palms down, to show her the trembling. “That starts every time I think about the baby being inside me.” Crap. He felt short of breath as the panic started to creep in again. 

Pursing her lips in concern, she stood up, came around the desk and took his hands. “How can I help?”

“I don’t know.” Shit, he felt his lower lip quivering. Shit, shit, shit. He blinked a few times and started doing the breathing exercise Teyla had taught him that morning. 

“That’s good, what you’re doing there with your breathing. Did Teyla show you that?” Kate squeezed his hands. John glanced up and saw that Lorne was getting up from his chair, watching him with concern as he moved to the door that joined their offices. Crap. He was having another meltdown, this time with witnesses. The glass walls of the office began to darken. John hadn’t done it, so it must have been Evan; the city only obeyed a handful of people when it came to the windows. 

Evan slipped in through the door. “John?”

“Okay. I’m okay. I’m just freaking out a little.”

“Kate, he’s as white as a sheet, should I call Carson?” Evan’s voice sounded a little far away. John looked from Evan to Kate as he tried to bring his breathing under control.

She shook her head. “No, I think he’s fine. Breathe slowly, John, you are not hyperventilating. Keep looking at me, squeeze my hands. Breathe slowly, count three and let it out, two, three. In, two, three.”

Lorne circled the desk and leaned against him slightly as he set a mug of water in front of John. He patted John’s shoulder, gripping it lightly before stepping away. 

“Eight more months of this?” John sighed shakily. “I can’t do this for eight more months.”

“Give it time, John, you only found out about this last night. Stop thinking about the pregnancy for a little while and focus on Cameron. You were doing better with that.”

“I’ll be in my office, shout if you need anything,” Evan said as he left, giving them privacy after checking on John’s condition for himself. Apparently his friend was convinced John was safe in Heightmeyer’s hands.

Kate squeezed his hands again before letting go. “You’re not alone John. You do know that?”

Sometimes he needed a reminder. Like the one he had just been given. Evan had come over as soon as he’d seen that John was in distress. Just a glass wall away on either side, Cameron and Evan - the two best friends he had in the universe - spent their days beside him. The others were a call away by radio. “I’m okay.”

“Find your center again?”

“Cameron. Evan. Family.”

She picked up the mug and pressed it into his hands. “Drink this. Count to a hundred. Then go and see Cam. I think you should call it a day, the stress isn’t good for the baby, and you look wiped out.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I’m going to go see if I can’t make Evan cry now,” she smirked as she collected her datapad.

“Evil woman.” He considered staying to watch, but his need to see Cameron was greater than his need to see Evan squirm.

~*~

  
“You were with Heightmeyer, weren’t you?” Cameron asked as John shuffled over and kissed his forehead.

“How can you tell?”

“Your eyes are red-rimmed. I can feel that your emotions are all over the place, but you’re trying to tamp them down and keep them from me, you only feel like this after a bad session with her.”

John climbed up on the bed carefully and stretched out as his _panor’eten_ slid over to make room for him. Cameron lifted his arm and after only a moment’s hesitation, John snuggled up under it and curled in. Just for a minute or two. He needed Cameron to hold him for a minute or two and then he could go back to playing Interim Overseer and pretending to be strong after he soaked up some support.

“Ah, shit, John. That bad, _keri_?” Cameron murmured against his forehead, and as always, the word _keri_ came out as an endearment. Damned link. He couldn’t hide anything from his _panor’eten_ when they were in physical contact like this, he wasn’t good enough at controlling the bond yet. He nodded and Cameron wrapped his other arm around him, a full hug now. He wasn’t going to cry. He’d just spent twenty minutes working that stupid exercise with Heightmeyer to ward off tears. He was the fucking military commander of this base. He was not going to cry.

“Did I see John? Ah, never mind, I’ll come back,” Carson came into the curtained off area, took one brief look and left immediately.

“Let it go, John.” 

He shook his head and pressed closer to Cameron. 

“I could make you cry, you know. I know which buttons to press.”

John shook his head again, he was afraid if he started, he wouldn’t stop. He hadn’t been able to tell Kate that this was one of his biggest fears about carrying, that he would become an emotional wreck and lose control. After only one day of knowing he was pregnant, it seemed he was already there. 

Cameron pressed a kiss to the top of his head as John slid down a little, and hunched over more. “I’m not planning on leaving you.”

“I know,” John mumbled. Crap, Cameron was going to fish around until he found the buttons. John’s emotions were so raw; it wasn’t going to take long at all.

“I shouldn’t have done this. I shouldn’t have let you convince me that you were okay with carrying. You’re not. This was wrong. I’m sorry John, I’m so, so sorry. I was supposed to protect you and I let you down.”

“Oh fuck...” *hiccup* “Shut the hell…” *hiccup* “Up,” he started to sob as Cameron held him.

~*~

  
A long time later, Carson peeked around the privacy curtain wall and caught Cam’s eye. “He’s out?”

“Yeah. I think he had a pretty rough day.” John was sound asleep, drooling against Cam’s neck.

Speaking quietly, Carson remarked, “Katie can be hard on a person. Your _keri_ doesn’t make it easy to help him.”

Cam couldn’t argue with that. “I think he had a session with Teyla this morning to start off the day. She came by and mentioned he’d been to see her.”

“Och. Book-ended by the lasses, was he? I wanted to do a blood test, but I don’t want to wake him.”

“How’s my passenger doing?” Cam motioned at his belly.

“Your urine came back clean today.”

Giving Carson a confused look, he asked, “It wasn’t before?”

“No. There was a higher than normal liver enzyme count in your test when we brought you in. I’ve been concerned about your blood pressure as well, but that seems to be leveling out.”

“You told John some things you didn’t tell me, didn’t you?”

Carson gave him a small smile. “I shared my concerns about your blood pressure, and the enzyme count, and the traces of protein that you’re spilling. At the time, I didn’t know he was carrying, or I’d have likely held back a bit to keep from stressing him.”

Aggravated, Cam banged his head back on the pillow. “Do not lie to me, CB. I hate that. What else are you ‘keeping back’ from me?”

“I don’t want you upset, Cameron.”

“Then tell me. Everything. Now,” Cam hissed, trying not to wake John.

Beckett came closer to the bed. “Fine. If the proteins continue to spill, it is a very bad sign. Your platelet count is off. You’re anemic. Your blood sugar is too low. The fetus is only half the size and weight it should be at this stage of development. I don’t know that the wall of the placental sac will thicken quickly enough to prevent a rupture when the fetus starts moving its wee arms and legs about. The fact that the fetus is so small is likely the only thing keeping the rupture from happening now. The slightest pressure on the membrane could cause a tear. I told John that I am doubtful that you’re going to be able to carry to term, Cameron.” Beckett took a deep breath and shook his head sadly. “I’m so sorry. There are just so many hurdles; I honestly don’t think the fetus is going to survive much longer.”

Well. He’d asked for the truth. Now he knew. He pulled his sleeping _keri_ closer. “This is my fault.”

“You asked me not to lie to you. Yes, your diet and lifestyle have affected the fetal development. We usually start prenatal care at four weeks. But I know it wasn’t done with intent or neglect, and many of these issues would have likely come up anyway. Don’t blame yourself. We have to treat this the way we would a _keri_ pregnancy. The sad fact is that an extremely high number of _keri_ pregnancies fail, Cameron, for just these same reasons.”

“Is it certain then? I’m going to miscarry?”

“I wouldn’t say 100% certain. Based on your condition today, there’s a slim chance that you might not. Two in ten cases with the thinning of the placental sac do a turnaround with treatment. Your health issues should resolve with rest and a course of medication and hydration. The infection is clearing up. The anemia, blood sugar, and blood pressure problems are all treatable, and are already showing signs of improvement. Don’t give up hope completely.”

Mitchell sighed. It was something. “What about this one?” He brushed a hand over John’s belly.

“John is fine so far. His numbers are good; the fetal development is within norms. I’m optimistic at this point for him and the wee one. He doesn’t sleep well, that’s a recorded fact in his medical history. Fatigue and exhaustion could become real issues down the line. He needs to get a full night’s sleep every night.”

It was something. At least one of their kids was okay.

“Get some rest. I’m not happy about you sharing that bed, but I’m more concerned that John sleeps, so I’ll allow it for tonight. You stay still; I don’t want you twisting about unnecessarily. I’ll send a nurse over to get him out of his boots and uniform, he might as well be comfortable.”

“Thanks, CB.”

The doctor waved over his shoulder and huffed in irritation, but Cam had seen the small smile. CB was just a big softie.

Tim the nurse came over and edged through the curtains. He nodded in greeting to Cam and moved to lift John’s arm to pull his uniform jacket off. When he picked up John’s hand, as Cam expected, his _keri_ roused at the stranger’s touch on his skin. “What? What’s going on?”

“Shh. CB said you can stay here tonight, but you gotta strip down a little. Let the nurse have your jacket and pants.”

Sleepily, John shrugged out of his jacket and started undoing the buttons of his shirt as Tim untied his boots and pulled them off. 

“I could do that,” he mumbled petulantly.

“Of course, sir, I’m just helping you out.” 

He did more than help. John flopped back down once he was stripped down to his t-shirt and was asleep in moments. Tim undid John’s belt and dragged off his BDUs, folding them and setting them aside. He unfolded the extra blanket from the foot of Cam’s bed and spread it over John.

“Thanks Tim.”

“My pleasure, Commodore, he seems worn out.”

Cam nodded. “Yeah. And he’s too stubborn to admit it.”

The nurse left and Cam dozed for a while. He woke when John started mumbling in his sleep. He settled down again when Cam made some shushing noises and rubbed his back. Hopefully, he wouldn’t have nightmares tonight. Cam was egotistical enough to think his presence might ward off his _keri’s_ demons.

~*~

  
“Oh, there he is. He turned his radio off and I lost track of him,” Evan said quietly as he came into the partition. Noticing John’s clothing and the blanket, he asked, “CB is letting him stay here?”

“Yeah, for tonight.”

Evan pulled a chair close to the head of the bed so he could talk quietly enough not to wake John. “Did he tell you about his masterful coup today?”

Smiling at Evan’s happy tone, Cam shook his head. “No, what’d he do? Do not tell me he was in the chair.”

“Hell no. He convinced Jack O’Neill to temporarily un-retire and back us up until we’re all at full strength again.”

Cam chuckled and leaned over to kiss John’s forehead as he ruffled his hair. “My sneaky little _keri_ miracle worker.”

“I thought you’d appreciate some good news.”

“I do. Thanks. It helps after the pile of bad news I just got. I made CB tell me the truth.”

Lorne frowned. “I’m sorry. I know bits and pieces, and I’m sorry. I know what it’s like to worry about a baby that isn’t even here yet.”

Asking how the incubator baby was doing was pointless. They didn’t know. The machine only told them that it was alive. Everything was a guess with the device. “How are you feeling, Ev?”

“I’ve got the same complaints as everyone else; headache and fatigue. Carson said the megadoses of vitamins might help soon, and as the hormone levels even out, the headaches should subside. My _keri_ is still a little messed up, and pretty worried. He called me ten times today to check on me. He made me a schedule. I have to eat at precisely 0800, 1300 and 1800 every day. And I have a set bedtime of 2100.”

“I could make a comment about your _keri_ learning a few organizational skills from the master, but I won’t. Is everything okay with the baby?” Cam pointed at Evan’s middle.

Lorne nodded. “Yeah. So far, so good. You seem more awake. You gave us a scare.”

Cam shrugged. “Sorry about that. I’m getting a lot of bedrest. No exertion, I don’t even have to get up to pee.” He grimaced and changed the subject. “John wasn’t in any shape to give me a report today…”

“Heightmeyer pushed him really hard. I sorta snapped at her about that afterwards, during my session. I was spying through the wall and he got really upset. She went back at me on it. We agreed to disagree. I’m supposed to mind my own business.”

Cam knew Heightmeyer could be tough in sessions. “How’s Telford doing? How is progress?”

Evan glanced over in concern as John shifted and began to mumble in distress. Cam shook his head to indicate it was not a problem; this was normal for John. Cam rubbed his back, and when John settled down again, Evan said, “Telford seems to know what he’s doing. He’s done well organizing the salvage operation so far.”

Hiding his smile behind his hand, Cam couldn’t hold back a small chuckle. This was high praise indeed from Evan Lorne. Telford must be working like a demon clearing up the messes on the pier. 

“Ah, ah, ah! You, out!” Carson snapped, coming up behind Evan and rapping him lightly on the back of the head with his knuckles. “He is not to be working. The city will not collapse if he doesn’t have the latest gossip. Off with you. Go home and rest. If I catch you making reports again, Sub Commander, I will start you on a course of intramuscular vitamin injections, using the large bore needles.”

“I’m being evicted. Sorry Cam.”

“Tell David I said hello.”

Evan nodded as he scooted around a frowning Carson, “I will. I’m sure he says hello back. He’ll be up to see you soon.”

Carson turned and crossed his arms and Evan scooted out through the curtains, making his escape. Carson turned back to Cam. “No working. I thought that part was clear?”

“I wasn’t, I was gossiping. Did you hear what John did?”

He could tell Carson wanted to turn and walk away in a professional snit, but his curiosity got the better of him. “All right, tell me. What?”

“Evan said he talked Jack O’Neill out of retirement.”

“He didn’t? Well I’ll be! Clever lad. It’ll be good for Jack too.” The doctor turned to leave. 

“Hey, CB?”

Carson looked back. “Did you tell my momma any of that stuff when she was here?”

“No. She has the two of you and your babies you to worry about; I didn’t see the point in adding to her concerns.”

“Thanks.” Sometimes a lie of omission could be a mercy, Cam thought as he snuggled down against his _keri_ and drifted off to sleep.


	10. Things Revealed

**March**  
Everyone in the room was staring straight at Evan, or at least he imagined that they were. Facing civilians was much different than being up in front of a platoon of soldiers. Evan was standing on the raised platform beside the podium where John was nervously waiting for the crowd to finish taking their seats, simmer down and be quiet. Out of habit, Evan had fallen into parade rest, hands clasped behind his back with his legs slightly apart.

Jack O’Neill hobbled into the room, Doctor Carter-O’Neill at his side. Directed by Captain Scott, they took the seats at the end of the front row that had been set aside for them, on the opposite side of the auditorium from Rodney McKay. Being no fool, Sam was wisely keeping her colleague and her _panor’eten_ apart, lest fireworks start, the two simply did not get along.

The auditorium had likely been a music hall when the Ancients lived here, it was well-suited for performances. The acoustics were excellent, according to the people who knew about such things. All Evan knew was that it fit a heck of a lot of people inside it. When they had discovered the room and decided to utilize it for the intended purpose, Engineering had come in and repaired the original Ancient sound system. They could seat five thousand, if they opened the upper balcony, which they had been forced to do for today’s meeting. Word of mouth had led to a lot of extra permissions being granted to attend this meeting.

Sitting in the front row, a tablet in his hand and ready to move when John summoned him to the front, Carson caught Evan’s eye and gave him an encouraging smile. He looked tired. They were all more than a little frayed at the edges, it had been an exhausting time as they tried to settle the new influx of refugees that had come in with Telford and also attempted to determine the scope of the changes to their reproductive systems.

“Almost ready?” Cam asked Evan over the private channel that only he and John could hear. Mitchell was irritated by but resigned to the complete bed rest Fraiser and Beckett insisted upon. Carson had rescinded his new standing order about Cam doing any kind of work just for the day so that he could participate in this meeting. A camera had been set up in the back of the room, they were recording this and Cam was watching on a laptop in the infirmary. Lorne was his liaison for the meeting; he’d be relaying to the audience anything the Overseer wanted to add.

“I’d like to start by conveying our appreciation to everyone for attending, especially given the lack of information we provided when we asked you come here,” John said as the last people took their seats. There were a few titters of nervous laughter at his greeting. “For those of you who do not know me, I’m Commander John Sheppard-Mitchell. This is Sub Commander Evan Lorne, my executive officer. Evan will be acting as a liaison today for Overseer Mitchell. The reasons for his absence will be explained as we make our way through this briefing.” That caused a small wave of murmuring which died down quickly enough.

“If you received a message to come here today, then you fall into one of three groups. You are either _keri_ , _panor_ , or you have tested positive for the Ancient gene. By a show of hands, how many of you have been experiencing frequent headaches over the past month or two?”

As most of the hands in the room went up, there was an outburst of surprised chatter. “He’s going to let them go for a minute to get it out of their systems and let the number sink in,” Cam said in Evan’s ear. Evan decided that was an observation meant for him and not for general consumption.

John raised his hands and patted the air and the room went quiet again. “As you can see, it is a significant percentage. We called you in to explain what we’ve found as we looked into the issue. It might or might not surprise you to know that the majority of _keri_ and _panor_ are also Ancient Gene holders. While we have not had time to research how exactly the one affects the other, it does have bearing on our current situation.”

“How glazed over are their eyes, Ev?” Mitchell could only see John and Evan on the camera; the audience was not visible to him. Evan looked around, shrugged lightly and gave a slight waggle of his hand. It wasn’t too bad yet, they were still listening.

“The city possesses an Artificial Intelligence subroutine in the Ancient computer systems. When we first discovered this, we allowed the subroutine to continue running as it has proven to be highly effective in helping us to utilize the city’s systems. The AI was designed for this purpose by the Ancients, disabling it would make it extremely difficult to operate some of the more intricate life support systems.”

“Water, John,” Cam reminded, John was nervous, he had not wanted to do this presentation as he hated public speaking. From the infirmary, Cam was watching out for his _keri_ as best he could.

Pausing, John obediently reached for the canteen that was sitting on the podium and took a few sips. Evan noticed that his hand was not entirely steady as he set it back down. “I apologize for the lecture, but it will be hard to explain what I need to without this background. I’m being as brief as possible, believe me. We’ll open the floor for some questions later.” Some of the mumbling in the crowd stopped.

“Eye contact, show some of that Butcher confidence I heard about. Grrr,” Cam said as John’s head tipped down and he spoke at the podium top more than the crowd. He wasn’t used to addressing civilians any more than Evan was used to standing up in front of them. Evan covered his smirk with his hand as John’s head shot up.

“Now, as some of you know, those with a strong expression of the Ancient Gene are able to utilize many of the Atlantis systems in the manner in which the Ancients designed them to be used. We have discovered that there is a mental element; some might call it telepathic, to some systems. The puddlejumpers, lights, doors and window tints are the ones we’ve been able to learn to control. The interface with the city’s command chair is also mental.”

Some of this had been classified information under SGO, but Cameron had decided to declassify it; it was time the residents of the city knew a little more about the place they lived. 

Mitchell huffed in mild irritation when the noise level increased, conversations springing up around the auditorium. “Rein them back in. There’s too much chatter out there.”

“If we could have quiet, please?” Evan called out in the same voice he used to bring marines to order. The result was instantaneous; the room went silent.

“Cool, Ev, do that again,” Cam breathed in his ear, obviously amused.

John took another sip of water and continued. “There will be an opportunity for some questions later. You may also use the city’s message system to forward any questions to the command staff and we will do our best to answer them. Now, those of you that were here with the Expedition in the early years will remember a few lockdowns that we went through, before we figured out how to program the automatic quarantine levels. The city has biosensors. These biosensors are essentially the interface between us and the city, allowing those of us capable of doing so to control the lights, etcetera.”

“Dim the lights; give them a little showmanship, John.”

“The Overseer thinks a demonstration is in order,” Evan remarked when John didn’t take the hint. John rolled his eyes and glared over at Evan. Flashing him a smile, Evan shrugged and pointed at his ear piece.

The lights dimmed low and then went back up to normal levels. “A mental component,” John said as he tapped his temple. “There are a classified number of individuals authorized to access various levels of the city’s systems. Don’t get frustrated if you can’t work the lights, the city might not have gotten around to scanning and authorizing you yet.” That was met with a smattering of chuckles.

“Back in September, we requested an increase in the security level of all Ancient Gene holders so that everyone could at least work the doors, lights and windows. In response, the AI initiated a city wide scan of all residents. We have determined that the city discovered the adaptations made to the genetics of our _keri_ and _panor_ by the Jirante. The AI identified these modifications as genetic abnormalities brought on by biological infection, and enacted an infection protocol.”

“Take a water break, let it settle in, you threw a lot of big words at them,” Cam advised and John picked up his canteen as the room erupted in chatter. There were a couple of loud outbursts around the auditorium, which were quickly shushed by others in the crowd. “Go with the simple explanation, John.” They had a few paragraphs of the speech that had alternates, in case they began to lose people and needed to simplify. 

Tapping his tablet, John read from his notes, “The simple explanation is that the AI added a biological compound to the city’s water supply. We were dosed with an antidote, as far as the AI was concerned. The short term result was that there was a radical drop in the conception rate as the city’s engineered virus worked through us. Concerns by our Medical department about this drop were what brought this issue to light, though it would not have been much longer before we figured out that something was going on. The headaches you’ve been suffering appear to be rooted in a hormonal imbalance brought on by the modifications the engineered virus caused. As the hormones level out, the headaches will taper off.”

“Unless you’re pregnant, in which case, your headaches have only just begun,” Cam quipped cheerfully and John had to turn away from the podium momentarily to regain his composure. He faked a cough before turning back to the crowd.

“When this came to light, we immediately began a series of tests. As soon as Medical felt they had some answers, they asked that we bring it to the attention of those most affected.”

John looked over at Carson. “Doctor Beckett, did you have a statement?”

Nodding, Carson stood up. “You’re doing fine, but I’ll say a few words to give you a break.”

He took the podium and John stepped over to stand beside Evan, bumping his shoulder as he too fell into parade rest.

“Now, we do not mean to cause a panic. We’ve a better idea now of what we’re dealing with than we did a week ago. The AI identified the anomalies, which were of course the mutations the Jirante induced in our people. At first we feared this was going to undo everything that the Jirante had done, because we’d seen such a drop in the conception rate. The opposite appears to be true.”

There were quite a few relieved exhalations of breath in the audience. Carson smiled and continued, “This engineered virus seems to have corrected some of the imperfections left behind after the Jirante’s procedures. First and foremost, it seems that human female ovaries have been reinitialized. The Jirante procedures had disabled the ovaries in lieu of the egg sac. I shall not bore you with details about the science behind the egg sacs; you can read that on your own.”

Quite used to giving talks, Carson wasn’t thrown off by the chatter and continued on. “We have two confirmed pregnancies that have happened without chemical bonding taking place first.”

The room erupted in conversation at that. Evan looked over at John as the radio crackled and Cam said, “They’re gonna go nuts when they hear the rest.”

“Please settle down, we’ve more to tell you,” Carson said. “Both of these ladies are _panor_. The fathers are Langaren and Athosian. We are hopeful that this might mean a possible end to our fertility issues.”

A few hands went up, but Carson nipped it in the bud, “We’ll do questions in a bit. We’ve five early stage _keri_ pregnancies, which happened within the bond. The _keri_ that we have tested thus far seem perfectly healthy. Our _keri_ patients that were affected by headaches have noticed a marked decrease in them over the past few weeks, as have the _keri_ we have polled about the headaches.”

Adding a touch of drama to his presentation, Carson glanced over at John for confirmation. John nodded. Evan nodded too; David hadn’t had a headache in a week or so. “We will be doing testing on each and every affected person, I promise. A schedule is being set up. Don’t worry, we will check everyone.”

“There has been an unexpected side effect of the corrections. Many _panor_ carry vestigial egg sacs; non-functioning sacs or small lumps of tissue that did not develop completely during the adaptation procedures. If they had, those _panor_ would have become _keri_ upon maturation. The AI’s engineered virus has in some cases repaired and activated those egg sacs and faux fallopian passages. To cut to the chase, we have male _panor_ that are now capable of conception.”

Rather than a noisy outburst, this announcement was met with confused silence followed by a low hum of chatter. Carson let it die down. “We have already called in all _panor_ presently in registered male-male bondings and tested them, and where prenatal treatment was necessary, we have begun providing it. 

“I do not think I need to tell you that male pregnancies carry more risk than female pregnancies; we all had the lectures in the schoolroom. I will remind you that the longer a male pregnancy goes undetected, the higher the risk of damage to the fetus. The bottom line is this: there is a now a possibility of pregnancy in male _panor_ inside or outside a bond. If you are a sexually active male _panor_ , notify Medical immediately so that you can be tested as soon as possible and we can mitigate the risks.”

Carson stepped aside and let John take the podium back. John took a few deep gulps of water, then turned and offered the canteen to Evan. Evan declined and patted the canteen on his hip.

“Thanks CB,” John said as he stared out over the crowd, waiting for them to be silent.

“Whoa. Is that the Butcher stare? That’s kinda scary. And hot.” Evan smirked and shrugged lightly at Cam’s remark; he was only able to see John’s profile from where he stood.

It was about to get personal. John cleared his throat. “For the past week, the city’s internal network has been buzzing with rumors about my _panor’eten_. These are the facts, for the record. Commodore Mitchell did collapse during a meeting. He is not dead. He was not shot by people that came in on the Hrsul ships, nor did he require open-heart surgery on the floor of his office, nor was he attacked by Ronon Dex. I have no idea how that last one got to be so popular.”

The joke lightened the mood a little. “I’m not dead,” Cam droned.

Walking over to the podium, Evan cleared his throat and leaned close to the microphone. “Commodore Mitchell wishes to reiterate that he is, in fact, not dead.” He pointed to his com link and leaned back.

“Thank God for that, he wrote the speech. I wouldn’t have wanted to write the speech,” John added, attempting to lighten the mood a little more. “He is in the infirmary, however, on complete bed rest. He’s got a few issues going on with blood pressure, dehydration and a little pregnancy. Let me reiterate what Doctor Beckett said at this point, because it is personal for me. An undetected pregnancy in males… is bad. Cameron Mitchell gets to be our poster boy for early detection. Okay, we’re opening up for a few questions. Please keep the histrionics to a minimum and let’s try not to beat too many dead horses. There are a few marines with radios walking the aisles, wave to get their attention and they’ll come over to you so I can hear the questions. I’m not going to be a parrot, if it can be avoided. I’ll be paraphrasing your questions.”

“And here we go,” Cam said before John changed the radio channel to pick up the questions the marines would be transmitting. “I’m proud of you, John. You made it through the hard part.”

Evan watched John as he listened to the first question. “Okay, question about symptoms. If you are still having really bad headaches, or fatigue, back pain, nausea, vomiting, weird discharges and general discomfort, head over to Medical, don’t wait for them to call you in.”

He looked across the room for the next one. “Question about the effect on non gene holders. We’re not sure yet how the baseline population has been affected by the virus. Eventually, we’ll get to doing blood tests and scans on everyone in the city. We’re starting with the people we know are most affected and most at risk.”

John tilted his head as he listened to the question being asked by a lady near the back. His eyebrow went up and he looked up, directly at the camera at the back. “Huh. I don’t know. Cameron, are we officially telling people to stop having sex?”

As Cam answered, Evan held up a hand to indicate John should wait for the response. He repeated verbatim what Mitchell had said to him. “Only if they don’t want to have babies. Gray area at the moment, so until we get this figured out, we’re not going to change the law.”

Carson had moved to stand with John. He had been given a microphone so that he could answer questions as needed. “We are not going to be giving people contraceptive inhibitors until our systems stabilize and we are certain of the extent of the changes, in fact, those on an inhibitor regime were told to stop as soon as we found out about this issue.”

“I think prophylactic prices on the Gray Market just tripled,” John said, causing some laughter. “Next question?”

He listened and made a face. “I’m not really prepared to stand up here and give a sex education lesson. The genetic material got from point A to point B, it mixed up and tada!” John clapped his hands together for effect. “Baby. Next question?”

The lady that stood beside the marine, fumbling with the radio looked nervous. John listened to her question and then smiled. “Thank you. I’m hopeful that everything is going to work out. Cameron is strong and otherwise healthy. To answer your question, the dosing seems to have been a one time thing. I haven’t been able to find a record in the city’s system of more than one biological agent or virus being added to the water. All traces of it are gone now, the water is clean.”

John fielded questions for nearly half an hour, sometimes deferring to Carson or Cameron, mostly clarifying the facts they had given them in the speech. Evan jumped when Cam said in his ear, “Evan, tell him to wrap it up. He’s starting to droop, he needs a break - he has to get off his feet.”

“Commodore Mitchell requests that there be no more questions at this time. Please feel free to send any other questions on this matter to me, I’ll be disseminating to the proper departments; E Lorne on the network.”

The crowd broke up and Carson was immediately surrounded. Evan signaled to Captain Scott with a wave of his hand, directing him to see to the doctor. He was confident that Scott would get him out of the room.

Hobbling over, O’Neill and Carter managed to beat McKay to Sheppard by a few steps. “That went better than I would have expected,” O’Neill said.

McKay grumbled about pseudoscience under his breath and moved closer to Sheppard as a young man wandered up towards the podium. When McKay opened his mouth and looked like he was about to berate him, Sheppard put a hand on his arm. “Down, Rodney, one guy out of four thousand, I can handle it. Can I help you?”

“I know they said no more questions, sir. I’m sorry. It’s my girlfriend; I’m really worried about her now. She’s got a lot of the symptoms you talked about, but she’s baseline, so am I, but I tested for the Ancient Gene so I got called in here today. I wanted to make sure it was okay to bring her to Medical, I know you said you were testing other people first…”

“You should have her report to Medical, Mister…?”

“Benning. Russ Benning.”

Evan pulled out his tablet and asked, “What is your girlfriend’s name?” He started a note to Beckett, Fraiser and Porter.

“Lindsey. Doctor Lindsey Novak. She works in Engineering. I’m not getting her in any trouble, am I?” 

John shook his head, “Of course not, if she needs medical help, she should have it.”

“Thank you, sir. This is all a little overwhelming, a lot to take in.”

“As we know too well. Good luck, Mr. Benning, I hope everything is okay with Miss Novak,” John watched with his lips pressed together as Benning walked away to join the crowd leaving the auditorium.

“You notified CB on that?” Sheppard asked Evan.

He nodded. “I copied Fraiser and Porter. If she is carrying, this is a whole new category; baseline humans.”

Sam tapped John on the arm, grinning broadly. “I think you’re going to have to go back through the system and get the city to tell you the exact date the agent was added to the watershed, John.”

“Why is that?” John asked.

She smiled, “We might have to make it a holiday. Save the Human Race Day or something.”

 

**March 19**  
David flopped over in bed, his arm smacking Evan across the face and waking him. He grunted and shoved his _keri’s_ wayward appendage away. Now that he was awake, he might as well get up and pee, again.

He wondered idly if it was really normal to have to go to the bathroom this much. He wasn’t even a third of the way along. The baby was eventually going to be pressing on his bladder. Was he going to spend the majority of the pregnancy in the bathroom? That would suck. The closest bathroom to his office was down two flights of stairs and over three hallways. Maybe he could convince Doctor Heightmeyer to switch with him, her office was near both a transporter and a restroom.

Pushing David back onto his side of the bed, Evan tried to get into a comfortable position. His lower back hurt. He had been told that was to be expected. He rolled onto his side and drew his knees up and that seemed a little better. But he was wide awake now.

He needed to contact the Munari, see what they could trade for a herd of the goat-like things; booshi, or borshi or bosli or something like that. The milk from those goat things had turned out to be the most nutritious of all the herd animals they had tested from their trading allies. They were going to need a lot of milk. Nursing was possible but difficult and time consuming, and not every _keri_ could produce milk that was nutritious enough to sustain a baby. Back on Earth, there had been manufactured formula to feed to babies, which was very popular in male-male households. But they didn’t have that here; their supply of powdered infant formula was limited. He didn’t want his baby… babies to go hungry. They could be going into the goat herding business, thinking about the possibility made Evan start to giggle. It was late, he was sleepy.

“Wha’s so funny?” David mumbled into his pillow.

“Booshi,” Evan blurted, and started to giggle again.

David lifted his head and looked at him; Evan could just make out his face in the moonlight coming in through the window. “Go to sleep.”

“Help me? I can’t relax.” Evan rolled over and groped him.

“Seriously? Are you up to that?”

He was thrilled to be off the inhibitors. Rubbing against David’s leg, Evan nodded. “Please?”

It was probably the fastest blow job David had ever given him, but it served the purpose. Evan came and fell asleep shortly afterwards.

 

“Sub Commander Lorne, come in,” the radio on the nightstand vibrated and squawked, waking both Evan and David. “Sub Commander Lorne, please respond.”

He grabbed the radio from David’s fingers as his _keri_ offered it to him. “Lorne. Go ahead.”

“You’re needed in the infirmary, sir. Doctor Beckett said it was urgent, and that you should bring Doctor Parrish,” Peter Grodin said calmly. Grodin worked the night shift in the command center.

“Baby!” they shouted in unison and scrambled to find their clothes.

~*~

  


Evan skidded to a halt just inside the infirmary doors, not sure where to go. Unprepared for the sudden stop, David banged into his back. Angie the nurse spotted them and waved, beckoning them towards the back of the infirmary. Upon seeing her, David started shoving at Evan’s shoulder to move him in the right direction.

The Fetal Incubation Unit was surrounded by Earth medical equipment, apparently the medical team was trying to be prepared for all eventualities. Stepping back as a nurse tried to get past him; Evan began to chew on his thumbnail. His daughter was about to be born.

“I’m gonna throw up,” David whispered, reaching down to clutch at Evan’s hand.

Evan glanced over at him, but David’s coloring looked perfectly fine. He could sense how nervous his _keri_ was through the bond. “No, you’re not. You’ll make a mess and distract someone if you do. You don’t want to do that.”

David’s eyes went wide and he clamped a hand over his mouth and began to rock back and forth on his heels.

The FIU was beeping what was obviously an alert. Lights were flashing on the side as Carson crouched beside it. “Don’t worry, it just started doing that,” he assured everyone.

“What’s going on?” Sheppard yawned as he came in, sleep rumpled dressed in sweats and obviously also roused out of a dead sleep.

“Come over here and talk to this bloody machine. You’re the only one it will give any information to,” Carson hissed in reply. He saw Evan watching him and smiled and his tone was more chipper as he said, “Everything’s fine, no worries!”

Joining Beckett beside the FIU, Sheppard put a hand over the control panel and closed his eyes. He’d been the one to tell them that the baby was a girl a few weeks ago; they hadn’t been able to determine much else from the minimal panels on the side of the unit.

“Ding!” Sheppard called cheerfully as he opened his eyes and looked over at David and Evan and grinned. “Baby’s done!”

Relief flooded over Evan. Not knowing what the alarm meant, he’d been worried that something might be wrong. They had two weeks still to go until the due date Carson had computed, the baby could have been in some kind of distress.

“I think we just need to press over here and open it, the FIU should go into an auto-shutdown,” John waved a hand at the controls.

“Right.” Beckett pointed at John, “You, keep a hand on the machine, tell me if you get any other information from it. Angie, dear, you keep the warming bed ready. Janet, you focus on our wee lass, I’ll see to the placental sac and getting her detached from the unit.”

Doctor Fraiser nodded and moved into position with her stethoscope in hand. She glanced over and gave Evan and David an encouraging smile. A hand fell heavily on Evan’s shoulder and he glanced up to see Mitchell beside him, an IV pole in tow behind him.

“Should you be up?” Evan asked with concern.

Cam gave him a mischievous wink, “If anyone asks, I got up to go potty. I don’t want to miss this.”

Pressing the button stopped the alarm. Everyone held their breath as the globe at the top of the unit slowly folded open, retracting into the base. The revealed pinkish-white sac was an irregularly shaped lump on the bed of the unit. The baby wriggled, making the sac bulge out, the outline of tiny fists and feet visible through the veined membrane.

The grip David had on Evan’s hand was making him wince, but he didn’t say anything. Evan had to tug him back when he moved forward to go to the baby. “Not yet, David.”

Fraiser handed Carson a scalpel and he took a deep breath before carefully making a long shallow incision in the membrane. Blood and fluid from the placental sac began to seep out along the incision, and it poured out and over the sides of the FIU in a gush as Carson made some slices and folded the edges away to reveal the baby girl. She was milky white and they could see the lines of her veins in the overhead lights, but she looked fully formed.

“Well, hello my little love. Look at you with your big blue eyes open! Let’s get you out of here, shall we?” Beckett said as he worked to free the baby.

Beside him, David gave a sob. Evan wrapped an arm around his shoulders and pulled his _keri_ close against him. Carson had warned them that he didn’t know how things would go after they severed the baby’s connection to the FIU. Everything about this was still so new and unknown. The danger wasn’t over just yet.

“Heartbeat sounds good,” Janet called as she listened, and then took the baby’s blood pressure, giving the numbers to Tim to notate on the tablet the nurse held. As Beckett worked with the scalpel, detaching the umbilical cord, Fraiser cleared out the baby’s nostrils and mouth with a squeeze syringe. Then she did tests of the her respiration, took measurements and pricked her tiny foot and then took a couple of blood smears. She handed the blood test stuff to Tim, who rushed away with it.

Evan had known this had to happen, Carson had told him and David what he expected to find and the steps they would have to take to get the baby out of the FIU. But all he wanted to do right now was hold her, to see for himself that she was all there. He felt his breath coming faster as he watched them working on his baby. Emotions battled reason as he stood there clutching David’s hand. They had their hands on his baby. The nurse was only cleaning her off; she wasn’t going to hurt her. He knew Angie. Angie worked here. She had her hands on his baby.

“Hey, easy, Evan. You know, this is why they don’t let _panor_ in the delivery room. She’s fine. They’re getting her out,” Mitchell said, gripping Evan’s shoulder. “Everything is fine. No berserkers on your baby’s birthday. It’s a rule.”

“Says who?” Evan demanded harshly, turning slightly to glare at Cam.

“Says me. I just made it. I’m allowed to make the rules, remember? Stop growling at me. Do I need to have you removed, Sub Commander?”

The tone of his CO’s voice and the use of his rank snapped Evan out of the haze he’d been slipping into. He was embarrassed that he’d growled. Thank God Cam was here, this was neither the time nor place for him to lose his grip.

“FIU’s off,” John called. “It announced ‘shutdown’ and then did.” His part in the delivery done, Sheppard skirted the puddle on the floor, squeezed past Angie and came over to Cam’s side. He wrapped both arms around him and mumbled, “I missed hugging you when you’re upright.”

“Me too,” Cam said, leaning in to kiss John softly.

Carson glanced up and spotted Mitchell. “Ack, you, off with you! John, put him back where he belongs.”

“I’m going. Jeez. It’s a historic event, I wanted to be a witness,” Cam complained. He slapped Evan on the shoulder and smiled at David, who was ignoring everyone as he stared intently at the baby. “Congratulations.”

The baby’s skin began to flush a little, she wasn’t quite as pale when Carson finished tying off the umbilical and lifted her off the FIU. “Angie, see if you can get the rest of the fluid off her wee back, it’s cooling off quite rapidly, I don’t want her catching a chill.”

The nurse gently wiped her as Carson held her. Apparently satisfied, Carson carefully placed her on the blanket on the warming unit and wrapped it around her. “There now, I think that’s good enough. We have some people waiting to see you.”

He crossed to David and Evan, glancing between them, uncertain which to hand the baby to. “Go ahead… take her David,” Evan whispered, nudging him forward.

Beckett placed the baby in David’s arms and something that had been wound up tight inside Evan snapped and released. It was okay. Everything was going to be okay. Their daughter was safe. He wrapped his arms around both of them and kissed David’s temple. It was going to be fine.

Looked over David’s shoulder, Evan stared at the tiny face looking up at him. He thought babies were supposed to be all squinty-eyed and scrunched up. But their daughter was round-faced and alert, blinking slowly as she waved a tiny fist and batted David in the chin.

“She’s here, Ev. She’s okay. Just look at how beautiful she is!” 

“Did you decide on a name? You have time of course, but if you have made a decision already, I’ll enter it in the city’s log now,” Doctor Beckett said.

“Chloe Teyla Lorne,” David whispered. He caught one of the tiny fists and bent down to kiss her forehead. “Chloe means blooming. Evan insists on Teyla. Here, Evan, you should hold her too.”

The handoff was awkward, but soon Evan was holding the tiny baby in his hands, staring at her. “I can’t believe she’s here, David. We have a daughter.”

Beckett let them hold her for a while longer before he took her away for a more thorough exam and a bath. David tried to follow the doctor, but Evan pulled him into a hug and held him.

As David was clinging to him, Evan could feel his _keri’s_ rising distress. David waved after the doctor. “They’re not going to let us leave with her yet. How can we leave her here? I can’t leave her here and go all the way back to our quarters.” David sighed heavily in disappointment as Evan made soothing noises and rubbed his back.

“She’ll be fine, but if you really want to stay here, I’ll talk to Carson and see what can be arranged.”

They went to sit by Mitchell’s bed, visiting with him while they waited for the doctors to finish with Chloe. Cam was awake, but John was sound asleep in the chair beside the bed, sprawled out and snoring. They spoke quietly, though Cam assured them they wouldn’t wake John, he was out cold. Mitchell agreed that Chloe Teyla was the perfect name for their daughter. They had a casual discussion about baby names and how hard it had been for David and Evan to agree on their final choice. Cam confided that John refused to discuss names until they were more certain everything was fine, he was being superstitious.

Cam’s eyes were drooping just before Fraiser came over with Chloe. He perked up and leaned in to peek at her when David brought her over to the edge of the bed. “She’s a pretty one. Look how big those eyes are!” 

“Say goodnight, Commodore,” Doctor Fraiser said and went over and shook John awake. “You have to go, John. Eight hours, go home and sleep. No duty for you until fifteen hundred.” John grumbled but got up and stumbled away after kissing Cameron on the cheek dutifully.

Doctor Fraiser led Evan and David to a curtained off area where the little glass warming bed was waiting. After putting the tightly swaddled baby down in the heated bed, she told David that he could sit with Chloe and if he needed to he could stretch out on a gurney that wasn’t too far from the baby’s bed. Smiling gratefully at the concession, David sank down into the chair beside the baby.

But Evan had to leave, ordered back to bed for eight hours to get real sleep, for his health and that of their other baby. Their other baby. He felt his panic start to rise at the thought of the life growing inside him. They had a very different delivery ahead for their second child.

Grabbing his _panor’eten_ around the waist, David pressed his face to Evan’s middle as Evan leaned over to hug him. 

“I’ve got this one. You got the next one,” David said, and kissed Evan goodnight.


	11. Dark Turning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Chapter 11 contains descriptions of Domestic Violence and Substance Abuse.

**April**  
It was o’damn o’clock in the morning and Dave was wide awake, again. His _panor’eten_ would be mad, if she knew, but Janelle was sound asleep, spread-eagle across the bed, leaving no room for him. It didn’t matter; Dave wouldn’t be joining her anytime soon.

Janelle had been talking the bad talk again, before she got drunk enough to fall asleep. When she got to the point that she was listing in her chair, he had tried taking the bottle from her, but she had gotten angry and thrown her mostly-empty glass at him. Luckily, his reflexes were good and Janelle’s aim was bad so he was able to duck out of the way. Later, Dave had cut his hand cleaning up the mess of broken glass because he hadn’t been able to find a broom or piece of cardboard or anything to use to scoop it all up.

When Janelle had heard about the seemingly random medical testing of _keri_ and _panor_ , she had made a point to keep her hands to herself. The glass was a slip up, and when she realized it, she had become even more enraged. She might have held off on hitting, punching or kicking him, but she poured the energy into finding new ways to insult him.

If he didn’t still care so much for her, the vile things she said to him and about him might not hurt so much. But on some level, Dave still loved Janelle. He loved the woman she had been, back at the start, back before things had gone bad. As weeks turned into months and months turned into years without a child coming of their bond, Janelle had turned away from Dave, taking consolation in pills or the bottle, or both.

Dave had no illusions about himself. He knew he was arrogant and high-strung. He knew he was kind of hard to get along with. He knew his brusque manner and language turned people off. But it kept people from coming in. If they came in, they would see, and if they saw; David Sheppard would be embarrassed. There was nothing anyone could do about the situation. So, he didn’t confide in anyone. He let people think he was an asshole. It was easier this way.

After E Day, there had been a chance to get closer to John, but that would have meant visiting and spending time with John and his too-good-to-be-true _panor’eten_. Janelle wouldn’t allow that, she always allowed him just enough time to visit with John to keep up appearances. As far as Dave knew, John had never seen Janelle take a drink. She was always perfect around him; she said and did the right things when his brother was present. So they had maintained a cordial relationship since coming here to Atlantis. Keeping their distance so John wouldn’t see, wouldn’t guess how things really were. That would embarrass Janelle and when she was embarrassed things were worse than usual.

Sometimes though, like now, in the silent hours, Dave wished there was someone that would understand, someone that wouldn’t judge and look down on him for his failures as a _keri_ and as a bond mate. He couldn’t give his _panor’eten_ what she needed, so he gave her what she seemed to want; the illusion of normality, the façade of a perfect loving relationship. They merely had ‘problems’ conceiving, that was all she wanted anyone to know. 

He wanted to talk to John. So many times back on Earth, he had almost called him, almost told him that Janelle wasn’t really taking care of him. He wanted to tell him that the calls Janelle made to John reporting the ‘tantrums’ and ‘outbursts’ that David supposedly put her through were in fact the end result of a day of Janelle’s drinking, or a drug induced delusion, or his attempts to calm her after she’d taken too many different pills.

Janelle snorted and rolled over onto her side. At least she wouldn’t suffocate. Dave always made sure of that.

He hated being like this; afraid and ashamed. But what could he do? He couldn’t very well denounce Janelle, it was so rarely done, and only in extreme cases. What would happen to her? Would his brother throw her in a cell somewhere? Dave was sure they had cells, probably in the dark and dank parts of the city that had once been flooded. Whatever her faults, Janelle was still his bondmate. They were linked; even though he barely sensed her anymore. What would happen if something changed that? 

He had been so proud of his brother a few weeks ago when John had run that meeting. Their second father would have been proud of him too, the way John was able to handle everything. Dave couldn’t have done it, he would have pissed his pants if he had to stand up in front of a couple of thousand people and tell them they had been drugged against their will. But John had been so fucking confident, as always.

Dave slumped over and rested his chin on his folded arms, staring across the table at the nearly empty bottle of rotgut. He knew where she got it now. Just to hurt him, she had told him tonight that she had been trading blow jobs for the alcohol with some guy that had a still. It was just one more bit of proof that Janelle no longer felt for him the way he felt for her.

Unlike Dave, rather than being happy that John’s _panor_ was carrying and that his brother would have a child; Janelle had become angry and jealous when she heard the news. She had hit him that night, backhanded him across the mouth when he mentioned it, grabbed his hair and banged his head down on the tabletop as she screamed at him about how useless he was. She had left, saying she was going to find a friend worth spending time with. He suspected he knew how she spent that time, but he tried not to think about it.

It was his fault they didn’t have a child. Everyone knew it was the _keri’s_ responsibility to conceive.

‘But maybe not anymore,’ a small voice said in his head. He told the voice to shut the fuck up and leave him alone.

~*~

  


The cuts on his hand hurt. They had become red and swollen by the next night. Washing his hands was torture; the water stung. He had taken a few aspirin, but the pain was still the same.

He hid his hand from Janelle when she came in after her duty tour at the laundry, but she didn’t look at him. Janelle hated that she had to do manual labor now. But Atlantis had no need for high-powered corporate attorneys. Everyone had to do what they were able to do, or so said the slogans on all the civil posters tacked up around the city. Dave worked in the greenhouses hauling dirt and learning to care for plants and the food crops.

Somehow, she could be even more brutal when she was sober. Maybe it was because the words hurt more when they weren’t fueled by alcohol. If she sensed any weakness in him, knew that he was in actual, physical pain, she’d make him suffer more. So he said nothing about cutting his hand. It had been throbbing inside his work glove all day. It had slowed his progress; he had to set the wheelbarrow down several times. If it wasn’t better tomorrow, it was going to be hell at work. Doctor Parrish had asked him to finish lining section three by Friday so they could plant next week. He was barely halfway done.

Janelle must have had a really bad day. She went to her small stash of pills and took a few. He didn’t want to think about where she got the pills these days, what she traded for them. Without speaking or even looking at him, she went to shower. He sat at the table, reading a book on his tablet, waiting for what was to come.

She came out of the bathroom and ignored him. He breathed a little easier. She started to weave on her feet as she dressed and dropped the hairbrush on the floor after growing frustrated with the wet tangle. She moved to the bed and pitched forward over it, instantly asleep and snoring.

At the table, Dave sagged in relief. It would be a quiet night.

He turned off his tablet and left their quarters. His hand was getting worse; he knew he needed to get something stronger than aspirin. He took the transporter to the Medical level and slowly went towards the infirmary. He’d never done this before, gone on his own to seek out medical help for his injuries. He had always been able to fix himself up in the past; he’d had a fully stocked medicine cabinet and a first aid handbook back on Earth. Now, he had aspirin and nothing in his quarters to use as a straight edge to scoop up a pile of broken glass.

“Can I help you, sir?” a lady sat at a small table near the door, working on a computer.

Dave took a deep breath and held out his hand, showing her his bandages. “I hurt my hand; I think I need someone to look at it.” There, that was the truth.

“There’s a chair over there by the green curtain wall, do you see it?” He looked and nodded when she pointed. “That’s our triage area. If you’ll go over there and sit, I’ll get a nurse to come have a peek. Could I get your name, please?”

He hesitated. Would Janelle find out? His hand throbbed painfully. He had to finish section three tomorrow. He would have to deal with Janelle’s reaction if and when she found out. “David.”

“David…?”

“Sheppard-Taylor.”

She gave him a professional smile and made a note. “Any relation to Commander Sheppard-Mitchell?”

“He’s my brother.”

She smiled and nodded, but made no other comment on the subject. “Head on over there, Keiko or Tim will be along to have a look at you.”

He sat nervously, his leg bouncing as he looked around at the infirmary. It was crowded with lots of curtain walls dividing the space. A Japanese woman in an Atlantis uniform came over. “Hello, I’m Keiko. What seems to be the problem?”

He held up his hand silently and she undid the gauze strips he had wrapped around the wound, frowning as more and more of the angry red skin was revealed. “Oh, dear, this is a bit nasty, isn’t it?” She carefully lowered his arm to rest his hand lightly on his knee. “I think a doctor needs to look at this. Come with me, please.”

Damn it. He had been hoping for some pain meds and clean bandages. He followed her to a sectioned-off area with a work table and another chair, this one with a small table attached to the arm, like they used to have at school. She pointed him to the chair and disappeared.

When she came back she was with a woman with short reddish-brown hair that was wearing a lab coat. “Hi, I’m Doctor Fraiser.”

“Hi.”

“Let’s have a look at your hand,” she said. She took his hand carefully as he held it up. Sympathetically, she sucked her breath through her teeth as she looked at the red lines and swollen skin. “I’m afraid you’ve got an infection here.”

She turned his hand over and looked at the palm, clucking her tongue. “Yeah, this isn’t good.” He winced and pulled back when she pressed lightly at the edge of one of the cuts. “Sorry. How did you hurt yourself, Mister Sheppard-Taylor?”

“I was picking up a glass that had broken.”

“There might be some shards in the wound. We should get this cleaned out and start you on some antibiotics to get rid of the infection.”

Keiko cleared her throat to get the doctor’s attention and waggled a tablet at her with an odd look on her face. Doctor Fraiser took it, looked at it and frowned deeply. “You’re _keri_ , I need your _panor’eten’s_ permission to treat you.”

Panicked, he blurted, “She’s sleeping. She had a rough day at work today; I don’t want to wake her. I’ll be fine. I shouldn’t have troubled you.”

The doctor was trying to catch his eye, but Dave wouldn’t look at her. After a minute, she said tersely, “I see. Well, wait here a few moments please. Please do not leave, Mister Sheppard-Taylor.”

She left, and the nurse gave him a small smile as she waited beside him. He heard footsteps approaching, too heavy to be the petite doctor returning. 

“Dave?”

Fuck.

“Hi John.”

“Hey, buddy. Janet says you’re a bit banged up… ow!” John hissed out a sympathetic breath as he spotted Dave’s hand. “What happened?”

“Janelle dropped a glass; I guess I got a few cuts when I was clearing up some of the pieces.”

His brother looked over at the doctor. “Yeah, patch him up, Doc; I can’t see Janelle having a problem with that. I’ll talk to her; tell her I gave family consent for medical intervention.”

Family consent, Dave had forgotten all about that. John was his immediate family; according to the law he could make that kind of call if Janelle wasn’t available. He had the same right to do that for John, if something should ever happen to Mitchell. “Thanks, John.”

John patted his good shoulder. “No problem.”

“So, you must have been close by,” Dave tried to make conversation as the doctor puttered with supplies since John showed no sign of leaving.

He tipped his head to the left. “Cam’s a few beds over that way. I was visiting. You should come over and say hi when the doc is done patching you up. We don’t see enough of you.” Watching the doctor and avoiding John’s eyes, Dave nodded.

When Fraiser sat on a stool in front of him and started cleaning the wound, Dave let out a small yelp and looked over at John. As the doctor squeezed out a bit of yellow tinged pus, John suddenly blanched and put a hand to his mouth. “Uhm…”

Doctor Fraiser glanced up at John and pointed towards the opening in the curtains. “You, out, now, I don’t want you passing out and hitting your head, or puking on my shoes. Out!”

Looking positively green around the gills, John hesitated, looked at Dave apologetically and then fled. 

“Keiko, hand me that syringe I filled. This will numb your hand, Mister Sheppard-Taylor.”

He nodded, wondering when John had become so squeamish. He’d never been that way in the past. “John’s _panor’eten_ is still here, huh?” She nodded, but didn’t give him any information. He relaxed and sighed when the anesthetic hit and the pain stopped. His hand had gone blessedly numb. After days of living with the constant pain and throb, this was a relief. She worked on his hand and Dave found himself keeping his eyes averted, it was kinda gross.

“Your _panor’eten_ didn’t see these wounds, did she?”

Caught, he had to tell the truth. “No, ma’am.”

She kept her head bent over his hand as she worked each finger individually, Keiko shined a light as the doctor pressed and dug with her tweezers to get to the slivers and pull them out. “Why?”

“She was working. She came home and hit the hay really early.”

“You don’t share a close bond? This level of infection must hurt terribly, Dave. She didn’t pick up on your pain through the bond?” 

“I guess the bond has faded over the years, she doesn’t seem to pick up on things the way she used to.”

Fraiser nodded, it wasn’t unheard of. Dave looked at the top of her head, since it was so close. He could see the white lines of scars through her hair and wondered what had happened to the doctor to cause them.

“I think I got all the slivers out. I want to put you on the scanner and check for any deep tissue damage, before I stitch or bandage you up. Be careful standing up and walking, I really don’t want you to fall.”

He nodded and followed her. As they went out into the infirmary, John fell into step beside him. “Hi. Did she get the…” John waved at his hand and made a rolling motion.

“Yeah. She wants to do a scan.”

“They scan everyone these days, it’s a thing. Don’t worry, it doesn’t hurt, they scan me all the time.” John waved his hand casually in dismissal and Dave’s minor concern about the process faded. They got to the scanner and the doctor pointed to it. 

“Do I have to strip?”

“No, it reads perfectly well through your clothes. Just lie there and stay as still as possible. I’m going to wrap your hand in this sterile pad to protect it during the scan.” She lightly wrapped a spongy piece of stuff around his hand and wrist and carefully arranged his arm on the scanner bed.

He settled into place and glanced over at his brother as the doctor moved away and started working on a computer. John reached over and squeezed Dave’s foot. “We’ll talk later.”

“John,” Doctor Fraiser said, waving her hands in a shooing motion. 

The scan didn’t hurt, it was a little bright, but he closed his eyes and it was okay. He held very still, he had a lot of practice at that. Sometimes faking sleep and being still kept Janelle from yelling at him. 

“Very good, Mister Sheppard-Taylor. You can get up; I’ve got what I needed.” Dave noticed Doctor Fraiser tip her head at John. She pulled him aside and spoke quietly to him. John kept looking over at Dave, his lips tightly pressed together. He shook his head and turned away; the doctor clasped his arm to hold him in place as continued to speak to him. She must be a close friend to John and Cameron, to be touching him like that. John nodded at whatever she said to him and then stalked off. 

“John will be right back. Would you come with me? I want to get an IV line in you; you’ll be more comfortable on a bed.”

He’d had IVs before. The time Janelle had knocked him down the stairs and he’d woken in the ambulance, he’d had an IV line in his arm. When he’d broken his wrist, both times, they’d given him antibiotics via IV. The doctor patted his arm and stepped outside the curtains.

When John came back, he had a pretty woman with long blonde hair with him. She smiled at him and pulled a stool over beside the gurney Dave was stretched out on. His brother hovered a few steps behind her. “Hi, I’m Kate, Mister Sheppard-Taylor. I wanted to talk with you a bit about how you hurt your hand.”

“I was picking up some glass,” he shrugged.

“How did the glass get broken?”

“Janelle… dropped it,” he finished lamely.

She nodded and looked at the tablet she held on her knee. “This was yesterday?”

“The night before.”

“Do you consider yourself an awkward kind of guy?”

He shrugged. “No more than anyone else. Why?”

“You seem to have a lot of scars, Dave, far more than most _keri_. How did you get the cut over your eye?” 

He blinked at her in confusion. She held up the tablet and he could see an image on it. “The scanner picked up an extraordinary amount of scar tissue. The cut over your eye must have been deep, how did it happen?”

“Who are you? I don’t think I’m supposed to be talking to you without Janelle here.” Janelle was going to be furious at him. And John, she was going to be angry with John too for his part in this.

John cleared his throat to get his attention. “Dave, you need to talk to Kate.” 

He shook his head in refusal. “Not without Janelle.”

Kate shook her head, “I’m afraid that Janelle’s rights as your _panor’eten_ have been suspended pending the outcome of our investigation, Dave.”

“I just cut my hand!” he yelled in a panic as he leaned up and tried to get off the gurney. A male nurse had appeared out of nowhere and gently but firmly pressed him back down. Standing to the side, behind Kate, John had his arms wrapped around his middle and was watching with an expression Dave had never seen on him before. John looked afraid.

“The law is very specific, Dave. If your _panor’eten_ has been causing you physical harm, you need to be removed from the home for your own protection.”

“This is fucking ridiculous. Let me the hell up. This is bullshit!”

John said quietly, “If this wasn’t so serious, I’d laugh and say that sounds more like my brother talking.”

“John, do you have something to do with this, you asshole?”

That seemed to snap John out of his stupor, he walked over to Dave and hissed, “What the fuck has she been doing to you? How long has this been going on? Why didn’t you say something? This is just so unbelievable, Dave.”

Kate leaned over and grasped John’s arm, “John, that’s enough. You’re getting worked up and that’s inadvisable. Go and sit with Cameron. Now.”

With a last look of utter betrayal, John spun on his heel and left. Who the hell was this chick that she could give the Base Commander orders? Only Mitchell should be able to order John around like that. John had listened, which was the more important thing.

“I’m here to help you, Dave. I’m not here to punish you.”

“You just threw my brother out. He went.”

“I’m his doctor, sometimes he does what I tell him to do.”

“You’re a shrink? I’m not crazy.”

She didn’t deny that she was a shrink, he noticed. “No one said that you were. But you have been hurt frequently in the past. How did you fracture your skull?”

“I fell down the stairs.”

“Your wrist?”

“I fell down the stairs.”

“And the first time you broke it?”

He shifted on the gurney. The nurse had stepped back outside the curtains. “I fell on it.”

“You fall a lot.”

Dave shrugged. “I guess.”

“Excuse me. Heightmeyer.” The doctor tilted her head and Dave realized she was listening to the radio in her ear. He hadn’t noticed she was wearing one until just then. “I see. Yes that would be best to avoid a conflict of interests. Thank you, Evan.”

She made a note on her tablet and then looked at Dave. “How long has the drinking been going on, Dave? The drugs? Did Janelle drop the glass or did Janelle throw the glass?”

“I…” What use was it anymore? They knew. The stupid fucking scanner had given him right up, had undone years of keeping things quiet, of not causing trouble. Janelle was going to let him have it for this, it might take a while, but she would pay him back for all this trouble he had caused. “A while. She started drinking about eight years ago, I guess. The drugs came a couple of years later. I couldn’t give her a baby; she got more and more depressed about it and started drinking to get by.”

“Dave, we’re not going to solve this with one conversation. This will take time to work through. We have a very serious situation here. Your _panor’eten_ is apparently guilty at the very least of neglect, at the worst she’s guilty of of abuse of a _keri_ , both of these are extremely serious charges. This is an open investigation now. The evidence will be reviewed, and you and Janelle will be interviewed and counseled.”

This couldn’t be happening. “You can’t keep us apart.”

“I’m afraid we can, Dave, and we will. We’re doing this for your protection.”

“The bond.”

“One of the tests Doctor Fraiser performed showed a negligible amount of the bonding chemical in your system. There will be no detriment to your health to keep you physically separated, not while you are at these levels. When was the last time you had physical relations with your _panor’eten_?”

He almost screamed at her that it wasn’t her business. It wasn’t. 

“Talk to me Dave. Believe me, I am not your enemy. Help me to understand. I’m here to listen.” She folded her hands over her knees. 

“My brother is going to hate me. He’s going to be disgusted with me. I can’t.”

“Do you want to see John?”

Did he? “No! Yes. I don’t know.”

“John? Come back for a minute,” she said after tapping the radio on her ear.

He looked up to see John standing in the opening of the curtains. “I’m so sorry, Dave, I was out of line. I shouldn’t have…”

“It’s okay. What did they do with Janelle, John?”

“She’s over in the medical annex, she’s unconscious, they’re going to put her through a detox program and give her some serious counseling.”

“You’re not going to hurt her?”

John scuffed the toe of his boot on the tile, until a loud squeak made him stop. “I won’t lie. I want to. I trusted her. I trusted her to take care of my little brother and she didn’t do that. She lied to me. If nothing else, Dave, she owes me for that. But no one is going to hurt her, I promise. She’s going to be given whatever treatment the doctors tell us she needs.”

“Okay. Then she’ll be allowed to see me?”

“If she is guilty of what the doctors are telling me, I’m not letting her within three floors of you without a fully armed military escort. She put hands on you and hurt you? Never again.”

“Nothing has to be decided now, especially not with tempers so high. John… John, calm down. Your brother needs you calm and you should not be getting upset. Maybe you should leave now.”

“What’s wrong with you? That’s the third time they’re pushing you out. Are you sick?”

John looked at the ceiling. “No. I’m carrying. But that isn’t the issue here, this isn’t about me, Dave.”

His mind was reeling with the news. John carrying? Well, it explained a few things about his brother, anyway. Janelle was going to be jealous and then she’d be furious. Oh, the things she would have to say about Dave, the comparisons she’d have to make. John and Kate were staring at him as his eyes started to burn. “Janelle will be so mad.”

“Oh fuck, Dave,” John said. “It’ll be okay. We’ll figure it out.”

“Are you mad at me?” Dave felt like he was a little kid again, he even sounded whiny. 

John’s mouth dropped open in surprise. “Mad at you? Of course I’m not mad at you. I’m royally pissed at Janelle; I’d like to toss her through a space gate right now. But I’m not mad at you. How could I be mad at you?”

“Dad would be mad.”

“At Janelle.”

Kate squeezed John’s forearm. “Give your brother a hug and go away John. I’d like to talk to him alone for a while. I’ll swing by and see you before I leave.”

John leaned over and gave Dave an awkward hug, trying to avoid his injured hand. In a very uncharacteristic move, John kissed his forehead and rubbed his hair. “I’ll be right over there if you need to talk. We’ll get you a radio, if you need to talk at all, you can call me, okay? No more secrets, Dave.”

“Okay. Good night, John.”

“Night,” John waved and ducked through the curtains.

At a complete loss for words, Dave looked at Kate Heightmeyer. He felt very lost and very small. “I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to do.”

“Like John said, we’ll figure it out. The important thing for you to understand is that you are safe. If you aren’t comfortable talking with me, we have other therapists on staff that you can work with. We’ll go one step at a time. Doctor Fraiser wants you to stay here tonight on the antibiotic drip. I think you should probably rest now.”

He shook his head. “I couldn’t sleep.”

“I’ll add sedative to your IV, it will help you sleep. Would you like to talk until it takes effect?”

“I dunno, maybe.”

She smiled and stood, picking up a syringe and injecting it into the IV. He felt something cold as it reached his body and spread up his arm. She sat on the stool and scooted closer. “Tell me about the work you’ve been doing since you came here.”

“I’m in the greenhouses. It’s kinda nice, relaxing. My supervisor is cool. He was out for a while because of his baby coming, but he came back early because he said he missed the plants. He brings his baby in now, in a sling thing that he wears so she’s all tucked up against him here,” Dave motioned with his uninjured hand near his chest. “He walks around with her all day like that. It’s different, having a baby at work. It’s calm and peaceful and feels safe and homey.” He usually would have felt stupid talking like that, but Kate didn’t seem judgmental, so he said what he really thought for a change.

“What did you do back on Earth to pass your time?”

Dave was surprised, he expected her to ask him more uncomfortable questions about Janelle, but it was a normal conversation about a bunch of different things, none of them too distressing. He felt his eyes closing and lost track of what he’d been talking about. He felt her hand clasp his arm and squeeze, the way she had touched John when he left. 

As he drifted off to sleep, he realized that he had liked having someone listen to him for a while, someone that knew what a screw up he was, and listened anyway.

~*~

  


“Bored,” Cam said aloud, to no one in particular. For yucks and giggles, he said it again a few times, varying the pitch of his voice with each word. He was flat on his back, and would be in the same position for the next twenty six minutes. Then Angie would come and ask what he wanted to eat. After she had noted his lunch order down on her tablet, she would change his IV bag and raise the back of his bed so that he could sit up for the afternoon.

He didn’t mind afternoons as much as he minded mornings. By lunchtime, most people had cleared the most important stuff off their desks or workstations and more often than not, someone would come to visit him for a while and break up the monotony of the day. He strongly suspected that Lorne had a chart and a schedule, since he never saw the same person two days in a row, and there were always at least two visitors at separate times, the exceptions being John and Momma and the doctors.

He drummed his fingers on the mattress and stared down at his belly. There was a rounding there now that had never been there before; in about two weeks, he would be a full five months along. No one, even Cam, had expected the pregnancy to last this long. But day by day, their unexpected and presumably doomed child had clung to life, defying every medical expectation. Thinking about it, Cam patted the bump lightly and grinned. “You’re just like your father. Your other father. Stubborn brat. Keep it up, you hear me?”

Isolated at the back of the infirmary, Cam had no idea what was going on in his city. As per Beckett’s instructions; he was not allowed to have news of any kind that might upset him and cause him any stress. He was not allowed to work at all, not even paperwork. He might have won the battle with Beckett over keeping his own medical condition from him, but CB was paying him back for it by blacking out all of Cam’s other news. He felt so cut off, it was making him antsy, but Carson insisted that his boredom was not harmful to the baby and usually suggested he shut up about it. It seemed CB had a low tolerance for whining. 

John had come in and out a few times last night, summoned by Doctor Fraiser to some kind of emergency on the other side of the infirmary. He had been distracted the first time he’d come back to Cam’s bedside, angry the second time he’d come over and when he had returned and stayed, he’d been silent and withdrawn, but by that time had been blocking Cam from reading him through the link. His sneaky _keri_ had been perfecting that skill over the past few months and was now actively using it to ‘protect’ Cam from any kind of stress he might pick up from John. No matter how he urged, John refused to say what was going on.

Under other circumstances, Cam would have forced the issue, but he didn’t want John any more upset than he already was. His _keri_ might be disgustingly healthy, but stress could cause that to change rapidly. Thus far, John had been having a textbook perfect pregnancy, with not one health issue. He ate what he wanted, said he had no problems sleeping (so long as he had been to the infirmary to snuggle with Cam for a while before bedtime) and had kept up his morning exercise routine, although he walked now instead of running. Cam admitted he was jealous. But _keri_ had been genetically altered to carry, _panor_ had not.

Something big was going on; he knew it because John had still been off this morning when he came by before going on duty. He claimed nothing was wrong when Cam asked, and said he was fine, but he had looked away, refusing to meet Cam’s eyes. 

Angie came in and he happily changed position after requesting grilled cheese for lunch. Sitting up meant he was allowed to use a tablet or read. The afternoons passed much faster than the endless mornings. When Beckett came in he had been sitting up, reading a fluffy piece of fiction since he wasn’t allowed to have any mission reports. 

“Hey Doc!” Cam eagerly set the electronic book aside when the doctor pulled up a stool, obviously intending to stay for more than a minute. 

“How are you feeling this morning, Cameron?”

He stretched his arms over his head and yawned. “Bored, but otherwise I feel fine.”

“No headaches or nausea, no pains?”

“Not at all.”

Beckett seemed distracted. “I think I’ll let you go back to your quarters. You have to promise to continue the bed rest, but I think you’ll be more comfortable at home. I’m sure your sofa and a lounge chair on the balcony will be a welcome change of scenery for you.”

“Thank you. Thank you so much. I thought I was going to go insane counting the minutes between sponge baths and meals.”

“Aye, I know it isn’t easy for a man normally as active as yourself to be confined like this. But your last few scans have come back with marked improvement. There are no signs of infection. The placental lining is fairly even now, there is only one spot that is a wee bit thinner than the rest, and the spot is shrinking. We’ll continue to monitor that. Your blood pressure and sugar levels are still a mite high, but within tolerances. There’s no protein spillage and the baby is developing normally.”

“So, you think the baby is going to be okay?” Cam asked hopefully.

Pressing his lips together, Carson gave a reluctant nod. “I am cautiously optimistic. Six weeks ago, I was prepared for emergency surgery at any moment with you. But if things continue along this way, I’m hopeful you might carry to term.”

Tapping a finger on his belly, Cam smiled, “Stubborn. Gets it from John.”

“Yes, of course, all from John,” Carson snorted. “She’ll be a right stubborn lass, I’m sure.”

“It’s a girl? Really?” Cam was surprised; due to genetics roulette most male-male pairings produced boys. Chloe Lorne had been a rarity.

Carson nodded. “Aye. I held off telling you until the odds improved. The last few scans we did clearly show that you’re carrying a girl.”

A daughter. He felt a stupid grin spreading over his face at the unexpected news. “When can I leave?”

“I want to get another dose of antiemetics into you; I’m still concerned about your tendency to vomit. You may leave any time after that is done. Do I need to warn you against undue stress or activity?”

Ordinarily, Cam would have smiled, shook his head, agreed to whatever the doctor told him and then gone out and done what he wanted. But there was another person involved here, a little girl whose health was too fragile to play ego games with. He raised his right hand and said seriously, “I promise. 100% compliance, CB.”

“Good. Now, there’s a matter I think you need to be aware of,” CB shifted on the stool and looked uncomfortable.

“Does this have something to do with whatever happened here last night?”

Peering suspiciously at him, Carson demanded, “And what do you know about it then?”

“Nothing. I just know John was upset. He’s blocking me completely, but I can still read his body language. I know angry on him when I see it and something had him so pissed off he was trembling last night.”

Carson nodded and dropped his voice as he scooted a little closer to the edge of the bed. “Aye. We’ve a serious case of neglect if not outright abuse on our hands. John had to make some hard decisions last night, Kate tried to mitigate as best she could, but she couldn’t spare the time John probably needed to talk about it. Which is why I’m telling you as his friend, not as his physician, John will need to talk about this, Cameron.” 

Rubbing his eyes, Cam nodded, understanding now the tension in his _keri_. “Would I know the couple involved?”

“Dave came in last night with multiple lacerations on his hand.”

“Dave? His big mouthed brother Dave?” Cam’s jaw dropped open. Dave Sheppard-Taylor was the least _keri-like keri_ he knew, other than John. This was a shock. “What happened?”

Carson scooted closer, dropping his voice lower. If Cameron had not been the Overseer of Atlantis, he knew Beckett would not be giving him this information. But it would cross his desk eventually. Patient confidentiality or not, it was now a legal issue. “His _panor’eten_ apparently has a substance abuse problem. A glass was broken during an altercation. He cut himself cleaning it up. The cuts got infected. He feared her reaction enough that he hid the injuries from her. He came in without her, looking for some pain relief, and Janet had to get John’s permission to treat him. Janet suspected something else was going on by his manner and by the answers he gave to some of her questions.”

Shit. He had not been friendly with Janelle, but she was John’s family. He could guess where this was going; he had investigated several cases like this back on Earth while at the SGO. “So, Janet contrived a reason to scan him and found other stuff, didn’t she?”

“She found scar tissue, bone remodeling, deep tissue damage, all consistent with abuse that has been going on for years.”

“Which Dave denied.”

“Aye. John called Kate Heightmeyer in immediately, and she started counseling Dave last night.”

This was not the sort of stuff John should have been handling alone, then again, it was not the sort of thing any _keri_ should ever be exposed to. “And Janelle?”

“Lorne and his men had to override the security lock to get in. He found her unconscious in a puddle of vomit. They brought her over to Auxiliary. I was on duty over there last night. From my initial exam, I’d say she’s been drinking heavily for some time, as well as using drugs. As you know, the quality of the liquor folks have been making here is not top shelf. In some cases, it is barely above battery acid. She’s been at the hard stuff. A few more months at this level, she might have come in to us with organ failure.”

This was a mess; alcoholism, drug addiction and physical abuse, a nightmare combination. The law was clear, even if Janelle cleaned up and went sober, she had violated the bond, the oath she had sworn when she had taken Dave as a _keri_ she would not be allowed to be near Dave and she would certainly never be allowed to take a bondmate again. He summed up his feelings on the matter in one word, “Crap.” 

“Indeed. She is not at all a pleasant woman this morning. Waking up handcuffed to a bed would put anyone in a snit, but she is highly uncooperative.”

“Lorne handcuffed her to the bed?”

CB grinned slightly. “He took a great deal of satisfaction in doing so.”

Yeah, Evan would have, for John’s sake if nothing else. “I assume she denies everything?”

“She accused Dave of being a liar, even before the charges were read to her. We’re having Doctor Rollins work with her; he’s had more experience with substance addiction cases than Kate.”

Cam nodded. Rollins was also a baseline human that would not be intimidated by a _panor_ like Janelle. He was worried about his _keri_ ; how this situation was surely upsetting him. “CB, have you checked John over today?”

“I intended to, another reason I’m not releasing you just yet, you’re bait, for the moment.”

If he wasn’t so worried, Cam might have laughed over that. “He’ll be in for lunch.”

Carson stood and walked away a bit. “Don’t let him leave before I see him.”

“My word on it.”

~*~

  


When John came in, he was still actively blocking Cam and again distracted. Crossing his arms and frowning, Cam pointed at John and said, “You can stop now.”

“Stop what?” John’s voice was tired, what he was doing to protect Cam took a lot of energy. 

“Blocking me. I heard about Dave. I know you have to be a wreck.”

For just a few moments, it seemed like John was going to deny it and argue. Then he slumped down onto the stool and dropped his forehead on the mattress beside Cam’s hip, putting one arm over Cam’s middle and hugging him gently. John dropped the block and Cam sucked a breath through his teeth as he felt the backwash of John’s emotions.

“What do I do?” John mumbled. 

Running his hand through John’s hair, Cam was silent for a minute. “What do you want to do?”

John turned towards him. “I want to beat her to a pulp. I also want to open a wormhole to a space Gate and toss her through. All these years she’s been smiling to my face, lying to me on the phone, making me think everything was perfect or that Dave was overreacting to whatever the situation was. All this time she was…” breaking off, John reached up with his free hand and caught Cam’s hand against his face. “I thought he was safe. I knew he wasn’t always happy, but I thought at least he was safe.”

“He should have been. He will be now, this won’t happen again.”

“Too little, too late.”

Cam reached down and cupped his _keri’s_ cheeks, forcing his face up. “No, I’ve seen too late. Too late would have been when he ended up on the slab in the morgue. He had the sense of self preservation to bring himself in here, John.”

“Our Dad told me to look after him. I should have protected him. That was my job, I’m the oldest.”

“Which you gave up when he took a _panor’eten._ You had no way of knowing things would turn out like this. Five percent, John. You know the numbers. Less than five percent of bonds fail due to irreconcilable differences, that percentage includes abuse.”

John nodded after a minute and Cam let him go. He smiled when John scooted closer on the stool and picked up his hand, idly playing with his fingers. “How’d you find out, anyway?”

“CB came and told me. By the way, he wants you to have a checkup today; he’s worried about the stress.”

John agreed immediately. “Okay.”

“What are you going to do about Janelle?”

“She’s being moved to a small holding room near the auxiliary infirmary today. Doctor Rollins feels a cell with bars would be detrimental to her recovery at this time. As much as deep down I want her in the worst place I can possibly find, I know that she’s sick and needs treatment. She’s still a resident of this city and therefore under my protection. I don’t know how much of what she did to Dave was fueled by the garbage she was taking. How much was the bottle talking, and how much was her?”

“You are planning on talking to Kate, right?”

His _keri_ nodded. “I’ve already had an extra session this morning, she came looking for me.” 

“Good. So, she gets treatment, Dave gets treatment, then what?”

“Then I punch her?”

“I don’t think so John.”

John stood up and kissed Cam’s lips, sucking on the lower one lightly before letting go. “I’m gonna see CB, get scanned, then head back up to the office. Lorne’s been a little green around the gills the last few days, he needs a break.”

“Okay. I got some good news too, when CB was here.”

“Oh?” Smiling, John crossed his arms and waited. John had raided Cam’s closet and was now wearing Cam’s BDUs, a size larger than his own, but otherwise, John still wasn’t showing. They had yet to officially announce that he too was carrying. Cam decided to wait to tell John that he knew the baby was a girl until he wasn’t as concerned about Dave. 

Cam pointed to the IV bag. “One more dose of that and I can go home.”

The smile got wider and Cam felt John’s relief flooding through the bond. “That is the best news I’ve had in weeks.” He leaned in and kissed Cam full on the mouth. 

“I kinda miss sex,” Cam whispered, catching John’s hand and squeezing it as he backed away from the bed.

“That’s gonna be a while, buddy, nobody is touching anybody’s naughty bits until CB gives us the okay.”

Pulling a pout that was only half-faked, Cam replied, “I know.”

“We’ll get through. I doubt either of us will be up to it, with all the baby…” John waved a hand at his middle and then Cam’s. “Stuff. I’ll see you later, Cameron.”

~*~

  


Being home was so much better than being in the infirmary. He was able to nap without anyone waking him. He ate when he was hungry. On his first day home, Teyla and Torra came by and visited for two hours. Torra played with the toys she had brought along, showed him a dance she made up, and talked up a storm. Smiling indulgently at her daughter, Teyla had rubbed Cam’s neck and back for him before leaving, claiming she was happy to have the opportunity to return the favor. He had forgotten the few massages he’d given Teyla before Torra had been born.

His mother brought him snacks and lunch and visited with him, chatting up a storm as she knitted a blanket from wool spun from the borshi the Athosians were raising on the mainland.

It was an absolute pleasure being able to sleep through an entire night with John curled around him, skin against skin, in the quiet darkness. 

 

**April 14**  
Nate was annoyed that he had been removed from his Gate team and relegated to glorified guard duty in the Gate Room when he wasn’t helping with paperwork coming in from the away teams. This was all so unfair. He felt fine; there was nothing wrong with him yet. He wasn’t even showing. He and Jason had not told anyone about the baby yet. It was too soon, and so much could go wrong. It would be better to not have to see pitying stares if something happened.

It seemed to Nate that they had talked about nothing but the baby since they had found out. Jason was obsessed, not that Nate could blame him, after years of believing they’d never have a kid. But Jason didn’t want to talk about anything except Nate’s health, the baby’s health, the other pregnant people they knew, and how different their lives were going to be. It was getting to be a little bit too much for him. He was still freaking out and Jason wanted to learn to crochet so that he could make booties and blankets. It made him feel worse that he wasn’t as happy about this as his _keri_.

He still wasn’t sure he wanted to be pregnant. He had seen Doctor Rollins a couple of times like he’d promised Jason he would, but so far, the sessions had not made Nate feel much better about his prospects as a father. He didn’t know how to get that across to Jason without hurting him. Jason was so excited about this. But it wasn’t as if there was anything he could do about it, he was pregnant. He had to figure out how to cope with it. 

It meant so many changes. Their sex life was going to change. They would be no wild, loud, monkey sex on the kitchen table with kids around. It was already ‘hands off’ - Jason wasn’t even allowing him oral sex, even though the doctor said they could still have sex if they were careful. 

Everything was going to change.

Parenthood was not something he thought he would ever have to make a decision about, being bonded to a sterile _keri_. Nate was scared about the baby part. He was less freaked out about the baby being inside him than he was about the knowledge that eventually, it would be outside of him and he’d be responsible for taking care of it. 

He shook his head to clear it and turned his attention to the Gate. They were dialing out to one of the neutral trading planets, for a meeting with the uber-skittish Stoff. AG-2 was going under the command of Captain Cadman, without him. The new guy joining the team as Nate’s replacement was a marine corporal named Greer, a big guy that had impressed the brass with his performance since coming to Atlantis. This was his first off world mission. Stackhouse was more than a little jealous. AG-2 didn’t have a scientist to baby-sit this time out, and that made him jealous too. More often than not, they ended up with McKay when they went off world.

Waving to Cadman and Sils, Stackhouse stood on the steps of the Gate Room and watched the dialing sequence run. Sheppard came down the stairs, passing by Nate, and went over to talk to Cadman; giving her some last minute instructions. No doubt he told her not to blow up their trade allies, or something along those lines like he usually did. Nate was going to miss working with Cadman, she had taken some getting used to at first, but over the years she had become one of his best friends. He hoped maybe after the baby was born they might let him back on his Gate team.

There was a loud commotion in the corridor. Stackhouse turned towards the noise and took a few steps down to try to see down the hall. A dark haired woman with crazy eyes charged into the Gate Room, brandishing a bloody KA-BAR in one hand and a P-90 in the other. 

“HOLD!” Commander Sheppard ordered when the weapons of every marine and guard in the room came up. He raised his hands in a calming gesture and tried talking to the woman. “Janelle? Janelle, what are you doing? You need to put those down.”

She spun towards Sheppard and snarled, “Get out of my way, John.” Behind Sheppard, the final chevron locked and the wormhole engaged.

“I can’t do that, Janelle. Put the weapons down and we’ll go talk with Doctor Rollins.”

Laughing, she shook her head and said in a sing-song voice, “No, I don’t think so.” Then she started to run towards the open Gate. Instinctively, Nate moved to intercept her, but she raised the P-90 and squeezed the trigger. The wild stream of bullets sent everyone on the Gate Room floor diving for cover, getting out of the line of fire, including Stackhouse. He ended up pressed against the base of the Gate. She cackled hysterically and ran through the wormhole. 

Not thinking twice, Stackhouse scrambled to his feet and dove through after her. When he got into the clearing at the base of the ramp, she was already off at a run for the trees, so he started to chase her. Those closest to the event horizon; Sheppard, Greer and Cadman, came barreling through the Gate right after Nate, he heard their bootfalls on the ramp.

“Janelle! Get your fucking ass back here!!!” Sheppard hollered as he ran after her. 

Cadman darted off to the side, going for the high path that cut through the woods to the landing site on the other side. Over his radio, Nate heard marines checking in and Cadman coordinating the chase. Nate was still the closest to their runaway, with Sheppard not far behind. 

An obviously enraged Sheppard bellowed, “Arrgh! Janelle! Get back here, you crazy bitch!” If Sheppard got his hands on her, by the tone of his voice, Janelle was going to be very sorry for it. 

Stackhouse and Sheppard reached the landing site at about the same time Cadman and her group did. It looked like Janelle, the idiot woman, had run straight at their very jittery trading partners, the Stoff. The Stoff scrambled for weapons as they saw her run from the trees, still holding both gun and knife. She raised the P-90 when she saw them pulling their weapons.

“No! Stop. Janelle, no! Drop it! Drop it! Drop it!” Sheppard screamed, waving his arm at her as he ran to apparently make a grab for her. 

Dropping the KA-BAR, she spun and fired at Sheppard, about fifteen yards away from her. Nate wasn’t sure if she had intended to shoot him or not. No one would ever know. She was a dead woman as soon as she pointed the gun at the Commander of Atlantis and pulled the trigger.

The marines with Cadman, seeing Janelle aim at Sheppard, immediately targeted her and waited for a clear shot. The Stoff, unsure what the commotion was about, or who the target was, began to lay down cover fire as they ran to their ship. Janelle was hit in the shoulder with a bolt from one of the Stoff energy weapons; it sent her spinning in a half circle. Three marines took their shots at that point. Her finger was still compressed on the trigger of the P-90 and she sent a stream of bullets flying out in an arc as she fell. Nate figured that she was probably dead before she hit the ground.

He and Sheppard had been too close; Stackhouse saw his CO jerk and fly back as he was hit multiple times. Then Nate felt the burn as he too took at least two bullets, it might have been more but he felt two. He went to his knees, clutching his middle where the pain was the worst. Damn, he hated getting shot. Jason was going to be pissed, he hated when Nate got shot too. Then he remembered about the baby and his breath caught in his throat.

He heard Cadman’s voice in his radio, screaming his name. “STACKS! Nate!”

Then the darkness came. Nate fell face forward into it.


	12. Aftermath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Death of Unborn, Unnamed Character.  
> 

**April 14**  
Stretched out on the sofa, Cam was laughing at Torra’s antics as the toddler attempted to dance to an Elvis Presley song he had put on John’s music player. He suddenly felt a jolt course throughout his whole body. He immediately knew the source; he just didn’t understand why it was happening. He tapped his comm, “Chuck, why is John offworld?”

He could hear noise in the background, a lot of noise. He struggled to sit up as Teyla watched him with concern. “Commodore, we’ve had a security incident. An armed civilian gained access to the Gate Room, shots were fired. She went through the Gate, Commander Sheppard, AG-2 and some SFs went after her.”

“Understood, I’m on my…” Teyla reached over and grasped Cam’s hand and shook her head slowly. Crap. He looked down at his belly and sighed. “Keep me informed, Chuck.”

“Yes sir.” 

The radio went quiet and Cam sighed. “I hate this part.”

Teyla squeezed his hand. “It is not easy to set your responsibilities aside. What has happened?”

He related what Chuck had told him, realizing as he did so that Chuck had probably been so confused by what was going on up there that he’d forgotten the standing order from Medical about giving Mitchell information while he was on sick leave. He probably wouldn’t be so fortunate the next time he requested information. “Teyla, would you go up and be my eyes and ears for a bit, please?”

She smiled at him and looked at her daughter. “Do you think you will be able to cope with being alone with Torra?”

“We’re friends; we’ll be fine for a while. She’ll play, I’ll watch, right Torra-bug?”

Teyla crossed the room and crouched down, patting Torra’s belly and straightening her jumper. “Will you be a good girl for a short time and keep Uncle company?”

“I stay here?”

“Yes. Stay with… Cameron, what is wrong?”

He couldn’t breathe. He hurt, his chest felt like he’d been tackled by half the defense squad of the varsity team. He curled on his side on the sofa, panting in short bursts. Teyla crouched beside him, running her hands over his face and neck. 

She tugged his radio from his ear and spoke into it. “This is Teyla, medical emergency, Commodore Mitchell’s quarters.” Her hand was cool on his cheek as she pressed her palm there. “Cameron, where does it hurt?”

“Chest.”

“Doctor, he said his chest hurts, he seems to be having trouble breathing.” Teyla was trying to get him to uncurl, tugging his legs up onto the sofa and pulling them out straight.

As she attempted to sooth him, he knew this was not his pain he was feeling. This was coming through the bond. He grabbed Teyla’s hand. “John. It’s John. Bond. Not me, John.”

“Doctor Beckett, Cameron said it is John’s pain he feels, through their bond.” She tilted her head, listening to Beckett on the radio. “I will do that. Cameron, Doctor Beckett requests that you remain calm. He is sending help; medical teams have already been dispatched to the Gate Room. John will have help soon. Breathe, Cameron. Slowly, you are able to breathe; this is not your pain. Look at me, do as I do; breathe in with me.”

He squeezed his eyes shut and for the sake of the baby, concentrated on following Teyla’s instructions as she talked him through a calming exercise. He felt a tiny hand slip into his and he opened his eyes to see Torra standing beside her mother, chewing her lip and watching him anxiously. He gave her hand a squeeze and he tried to smile for her. “Okay. I’m okay. Don’t worry, Torra-bug, I’m okay.”

“Unca Cam sick?”

“Torra, Uncle will be fine, please go and collect your toys and put them in the basket for Mama.”

The door opened and a medical team came in, led by the nurse Tim who sometimes acted as a field medic for the Gate Teams when they went offworld. “Hello Commodore, having some trouble breathing I hear?”

“I was. Better now. Picking stuff up from my _keri_. Did they get to him yet?”

“Doctor Beckett and Doctor Fraiser are on their way as we speak. That’s why you got me, aren’t you lucky? Lift your arm, sir, let me check your blood pressure.”

Cam did as he was asked. “Where’s Doctor Biro?”

“Well sir, it would be violating Doc Beckett’s Standing Order One for me to tell you that.”

“Tim. Humor me, I need something to concentrate on beside my _keri_.”

The nurse gave him a tight smile as he listened to Cam’s breathing. “Let it out slowly. If you promise not to get riled up, I’ll tell you what I know.” At Cam’s nod, Tim continued, “Before she went through the Gate, the civilian woman stabbed a man. Doctor Biro went to help with the cleanup there.”

“Someone was stabbed to death?” Cam asked, knowing that Doctor Biro was the city’s coroner. “Names, Tim. I’ll hear them anyway, eventually.” It gave him something to think about beside John, and that helped him not to panic.

Tim looked over at the orderly he’d brought with him, Jonas Quinn. Quinn shrugged and then nodded saying, “I’d tell him, you’ll just upset him more by keeping it from him, and that would be bad.”

“Janelle Taylor overpowered the marine on guard during her session with Doctor Rollins. She took the guard’s knife, cut him and then stabbed Doctor Rollins.”

“Shit,” Cam muttered. “What in the hell is the woman thinking? Where does she think she can go?”

Tim pulled out a syringe, “I wouldn’t know about that. Sorry, sir, Doctor Beckett’s orders; I have to give you a sedative.”

Cam shook his head and held his hands up in a warding motion. “Isn’t it bad for the baby?”

“A berserker would be horrifically worse; we’d have to stun you to knock you down at that point sir. This is easier on your system. We’ll take you up to the infirmary; you can wait there for news about the Commander. If we need to, we can jolt you awake from this.” 

Having no desire to be on the receiving end of Ronon’s blaster again, Cam held his arm out to accept the sedative. The only thing keeping him from going nuts now was the distance between himself and John. When John came back through the Gate, there was no telling how things would go. It was better to go with the safer option.

He let Teyla and Jonas help him up onto the gurney. He felt his eyes closing as Jonas cinched the straps over his chest and legs.

“Unca Cam go?” Torra leaned down from Teyla’s arms and kissed him messily on the cheek.

“Just for a while,” Teyla’s response seemed to come to him through a tunnel.

Cam was unconscious before they got to the transporter.

~*~

  


“Janet, see to John, I’ll take care of Stackhouse!” Carson shouted as they reached the clearing at a run. It was better this way; Carson knew he was too close, John was like kin to him, it was better that Janet take care of him whenever possible. Angie was at his side, carrying an expanded field kit, and though he had hoped it wouldn’t be necessary, he had the sinking feeling as he got closer that they might. There was blood everywhere. John’s head was cradled in Sils’ lap, and someone had done some field dressings on him. Carson counted four bandages before he forced himself to look away.

The marines were carefully moving Janelle’s body to a tarp. One of Carson’s nurses ran over with a life signs detector to confirm that the woman was dead. Carson was fairly certain that when they did the autopsy the cause of her death would be the bullet hew saw between her eyes. 

He skidded in the bloody mud and fell to his knees beside Stackhouse. Cadman was kneeling beside him; her red soaked hands were applying pressure to two different wounds, both in the abdomen. “Ah shit!” Carson muttered seeing the damage and knowing about Stackhouse’s condition. “All right, Cadman, lift that up a bit, let me see the lower wound, keep pressure over there on the other for a moment. Good job lass, you’re doing the right thing.”

It was a mess. From the positioning of the wounds, he knew the placental sac had to be damaged. He needed to concentrate on saving Nate now. There was no way he was opening the man up in the unsanitary open field. He glanced around as he dragged his kit over and began pulling bandages and sutures from it, but the alien traders were gone, so at least they weren’t being actively shot at. That had happened in the past and it had not been pleasant operating under those conditions. He worked to stabilize Stackhouse in order to move him. “We have to get him to surgery.” Moving on automatic, trying not to think of his friend lying in the mud a few feet away, he applied pressure bandages. He looked up at Cadman, “Give your arms a break, let one of the marines take over, Cadman.”

She blinked and slid aside to let fresh hands press onto the wound. Her voice held a mild tremble as she asked, “Is Nate going to pull through, Doctor Beckett?”

“It’s too soon to tell. Lads, give a hand here. Get a hand under his legs there Cadman; let’s move him as smoothly as we can. Try not to jostle him.” Once Stackhouse was on the gurney and in motion, Carson had a moment to spare to check on John. He looked over to where Janet was crouched over Sheppard and called, “Janet?”

She replied without looking up from the sutures she was making. “Four wounds; chest, groin and side, a graze on the arm. I’m almost ready to move him now. Placental sac might be intact, I can’t tell for certain without scanning him. Vitals are fluctuating.” She glanced at Stackhouse then at Carson. He shook his head in reply to her silent question, it was too soon to tell the full extent, but the situation wasn’t good.

~*~

  


He had heard the initial reports via radio, so Lorne knew what to expect, but the reality coming through the Gate was a scene from a bad dream. Two of his best friends were down. Neither John nor Nate had been wearing a TAC vest, they had both been completely unprotected against weapons fire. Beckett came through at a run and whisked Nate off to the infirmary.

When Fraiser came through with John, she called for them to stop. Lorne bit down on his knuckles as she called out, “I’ve got no pulse, get me the defibrillator!” There was a mad scramble as the medical team ripped the blanket off John. “Clear!” Fraiser hit him with the paddles, John’s body jolted off the thin mattress of the stretcher. “Nothing. Again. Clear! Okay, we’ve got a rhythm, move people!”

Falling into step with the medical team, Lorne ran alongside the gurney as John was wheeled into the corridor. “Sub Commander,” Doctor Fraiser said in a warning tone as she looked up and saw him. “Stand down. Stay here.”

“But…”

Her voice was stern and the order was inarguable as she injected something into John’s arm. “Stay here, run the investigation. You’re too close, and I don’t want to find out what a _panor_ berserker would look like in your condition.”

Lorne stopped and watched helplessly as they took his friend away. Fraiser was right, he was too close; he could feel his tension ratcheting up, and an unreasonable PSG-fueled rage building. John might not be his _keri_ , but any _keri’s_ blood in the air could act as a trigger in emotional circumstances, and this was emotional for Evan. He turned to watch as the gurney carrying the blanket-wrapped body of Janelle was pushed through the Gate, followed by the marines that had stayed behind to clean up the area.

“Cadman!” Lorne called as she came through.

“Sir.” She looked exhausted, and she was covered in blood. Cadman had been on AG-2, his former team, since the beginning and had taken command of it when he stepped down. She was friends with John and Nate too. The four of them had started here together. They were friends outside work; they drank and played cards and basketball and watched movies together.

“Hit the showers, then come back up to Command and make your report,” he couldn’t make her stand here covered in their friend’s blood and force her to give him a report.

“Yes, sir. I’ll be back as soon as possible.”

Watching her walk off, he tapped his radio. “Chuck, have someone track down Charlie O’Neill and send him to Command ASAP.”

~*~

  


Charlie was in the training room, learning a new hand to hand technique from Ronon when a soldier came through the door. “O’Neill? The XO wants you at the Tower, on the double.”

What could this be about? He ducked under a sneaky parting shot from Dex, surely timed to test that he was paying attention to the lessons about dropping one’s guard and keeping one eye on the enemy at all times. As he missed, Dex gave him a lopsided grin. Charlie grabbed a towel and wiped the worst of the sweat off his face and neck as he went to the gym door.

“Do I have time to change?”

“I’d say no, Mister O’Neill,” the sergeant replied.

He followed the man to Command, to Sheppard’s office rather than Lorne’s. Lorne was talking on the radio and typing notes on the computer in front of him. He motioned for Charlie to sit as he finished up his call.

“Right, yes, I understand, I appreciate it, Doctor Biro. I’ll be waiting on those results.”

“Thanks for coming so quickly O’Neill. I’ve got a case for you to work on, if you don’t mind applying your expertise to the situation we have here.”

Confused, Charlie tilted his head. “What situation would that be, Sub Commander?”

“A civilian being detained in minimum security disarmed a marine guard, took his knife, cut him and stabbed Doctor Rollins. The guard is recovering, the doctor is dead. She then took the guard’s P-90 and went up to the Gate Room, fired a few shots and went through the Gate.”

“This is a mess, isn’t it?”

“Yes. And that isn’t the worst of it. Sheppard and the marines that were in the Gate Room went through after her. She opened fire on them; Sheppard and Sergeant Stackhouse were critically wounded. Three marines were also hit, but their wounds are relatively minor.”

“It sounds like you know what happened, Sub Commander, what is it you need me to investigate?”

Lorne sat back in his chair slightly and drummed his fingers on the desk top. “I want to know how a hundred and fifteen pound civilian detox patient managed to take down a marine. From the preliminary reports I’m getting, it seems she might have been juiced up on something. If she was high, I want to know how and where she got the stuff. If I have a drug trafficking problem on this base, I need to know about it now. We have a serious security issue, if this is the case. I can’t start slamming heads together until I know who is responsible.”

“I will look into it, sir.”

Sighing heavily, Lorne’s shoulders slumped. “Thanks. When Mitchell hears about this… well, I need to have answers.”

“I have authority to ask questions?”

“Full authority of my office, question whomever you need to. If anyone has an issue with talking to you, send them right on up to me.”

When Charlie left the office, Lorne was glaring at his computer screen, chewing on his thumbnail.

~*~

  


“Commodore Mitchell, wake up.”

His head felt so foggy. Why was he so dizzy? 

He was shaken by the shoulders. “Commodore, please wake up. I need to speak with you.”

He blinked and raised his head a little bit. The young woman standing beside him came into focus slowly. Long dark hair, exotic eyes. He knew her, she’d come in from the Alpha Site on A Day. Doctor Lim? No, Lam. “Hi. I’m awake, stop shaking me or I’ll throw up on you. Don’t shake the baby, she doesn’t like it.”

“Sir, we need your permission to perform a procedure involving your _keri_.”

“CB has carte blanche to treat John, why are you wasting time?” Annoyed, Cam struggled to sit up. She pressed a button and raised the head of the bed a little, which was good, the nausea subsided. 

She had picked up a plastic tub and held it beneath his chin until he waved it away. He must have looked as bad as he felt. “It isn’t just the Commander in this case, sir.”

“Out with it.” John must be unconscious; he was picking up muddled stuff through the bond.

“Commander Sheppard has been shot, multiple gunshot wounds. Doctor Fraiser said the placental sac is intact, but the Commander’s wounds are serious, she needs to do surgery.”

“So, do whatever needs to be done.” Cam said impatiently. Why were they wasting time?

Lam sighed and pushed her hair behind her ear. “She wants your permission to remove the placental sac.”

“Take the baby? She wants to abort the baby?”

Sadly, Lam replied, “There is a slim chance, a very slim chance, that the fetus might survive a transfer to the FIU.”

Knowing that time was important, Cam didn’t waste any. Lam had been spared from surgery to come down here. She was still wearing surgical scrubs. “And if you don’t take the baby?”

“We’ll almost certainly lose your _keri_.”

She wasn’t sugar coating it. He appreciated that. “Do it. Try to save them both.”

Lam squeezed his arm and rushed away without wasting another second.

~*~

  


Over the past weeks, things had cooled off; Laura had excuses any time Rodney asked to meet up with her. The only time he saw her these days was on the rare occasions when she came to the lab to put some time in on the EoA. He was surprised, therefore, when his comm crackled and her voice sounded in his ear. “McKay, there’s been an incident, Sheppard is… he’s been hurt, Rodney, you might want to go to the infirmary, it’s bad, very bad.”

He threw himself off his stool, crossed the lab in record time and raced through the corridors. He was just in time to wait with everyone else being kept out in the corridor, including Momma Mitchell, Ronon, Teyla and David Parrish. Looking around, Rodney suddenly realized that Sheppard’s brother was missing. Shouldn’t the little bastard be here? He bit his tongue before he could blurt out the question and said nothing.

“He’s strong, Rodney,” Momma Mitchell said, and Rodney realized he must look as worried as everyone else did. She walked over to stand beside him and rubbed a hand up and down his arm. Grateful for the soothing attention, he nodded and leaned against the wall, still frustrated that nothing he could do would make any of this better.

Laura came around the corner, dressed in sweats and a t-shirt, her hair wet and tied back in a single damp ponytail. Her face was pink and as she got closer, Rodney saw that her eyes were red-rimmed. She walked straight up to him, “Is there any news?”

She looked utterly miserable and her posture screamed defeat, something he could never remember seeing in her before. Puzzled, Rodney shook his head. 

“Not yet. They took both of them into surgery,” Ronon answered.

She sniffled and put a hand up to her forehead, rubbing as if she had a headache. “I… I have to go and give Lorne a report.”

“You were there?” Rodney asked, and the reason for her damp appearance sunk in, she’d had to shower the mess off of herself. “Hey, hey, come here, Lorne can wait a few minutes.” He reached for her and pulled her into his arms. She resisted for a moment and then wrapped slim arms around his waist and buried her face against his chest. A moment later she started to shake. He rocked her, kissed the top of her head and rubbed her back. She needed comfort much more than he did now, not that he was certain how to go about doing that. “Shh. Okay. Shh.” 

After a few minutes, she began mumbling against his shirt. “So much blood. I couldn’t do anything. I tried, there was so much blood. I tried to make it stop squirting out,” she kept repeating the same things over and over, and soon the words turned into quiet hiccups that might have been sobs, had the woman in his arms not been a marine with a set of brass balls bigger than Rodney’s.

After a while, Lorne thankfully turned up, so Laura didn’t have to go traipsing through the corridors in this state. Evan’s shoulders sagged as he took in Rodney’s dismay as he tried to comfort Laura. Marines typically did not have meltdowns and Rodney was at a complete loss as to what to do about this one. Rodney met Evan’s eyes over Laura’s head, hoping for some guidance. 

“She saved Stackhouse’s life, kept pressure on the wounds, kept him alive until the doc got to him,” Evan said quietly, a hint of pride in his voice.

Rodney squeezed her tighter. Nate was one of her best friends; they’d been on the same Gate team since the first day of the original expedition. She’d had his blood on her hands. It was enough to upset anyone, rattle the strongest nerves. And yet, she’d come back to the city and called Rodney to let him know about John, to tell him about his friend and had never let on how upset she was. 

“Do you want me to take her?” Evan offered, coming over and rubbing Laura’s back. She stood silently in Rodney’s arms, saying nothing, keeping her face hidden from everyone. 

“I’ve got her,” he hoped the look he shot Lorne conveyed what he was trying to say without saying it. He had her. He wasn’t letting her go, not again.

About fifteen minutes after Lorne arrived; Laura forced herself into some kind of battle-stress mode, set her jaw, steeled her shoulders and slid out of Rodney’s arms. He felt suddenly chilled without her against him. She held onto his hand though as she turned to Lorne and quietly gave him an account of what had happened. Then she returned her attention to Rodney and slid down the wall to sit beside him, holding his hand between both of hers as she closed her eyes and prayed silently. He awkwardly crouched and fell onto his butt to join her.

It was several hours of torturous waiting before Sheppard and Stackhouse were out of surgery. Lorne had long since returned to Command to oversee disaster control. Those gathered outside the infirmary had taken turns going to the mess hall for food or coffee or tea and bringing it back to share. Parrish eventually had to leave to collect baby Chloe and see to her needs, and the little bit of conversation that Parrish had kept up was gone, the corridor fell silent. 

When the word came that John and Nate were both stable, Laura wilted with relief. The nurse told them there would be no visiting and that they should all go home; they would be kept informed of any changes. Once again frustrated by the inability to do anything except obey orders, Rodney was forced to go along as the small group dispersed.

They walked together to the residence wing, and when Laura turned to go towards her quarters, Rodney went with her. He followed her inside without an invitation. She wandered around in a circle rubbing her arms. She seemed a little dazed. It made something in Rodney’s gut twist, seeing her like that. She was always so sure of herself, so stubborn, so… strong. Now, she looked like a very lost little girl. The ponytail didn’t do anything to dispel the image. It made something he’d thought dead and gone with Katie flare up; a need to protect, an overwhelming need to claim and protect and keep. 

“Laura. I want to stay.”

She took a step towards him but then shook her head miserably. “No. Not a good idea, Rodney. We need to cool it, remember?”

He stepped into her path and caught her by the arms. “I. Want. To. Stay.”

She shook her head and looked as if he had just kicked her. “Stop. We can’t. I can’t do it anymore. I don’t have the energy to be strong, don’t be cruel, tempting me with what I can’t have, not today, Rodney. Please,” she sobbed wetly, the last word coming out nasally as she covered her mouth with one hand, pressed a fist to her stomach and hunched over. “No more.”

“I mean stay for good. Together - us - you and me. I’m done hiding, I’m done pretending. I can’t do it anymore either. I’ll deal with the fallout. I’ll find a way to make it legal. I’ll fight whomever I have to fight.”

Tears streaming down her face, she looked up at him. “I’m not _keri_ ; I can never, ever be what Katie was to you.”

“I want what Laura is to me,” he touched a hand to her face and wiped a thumb over her cheek to smear the tears away. “I miss you. I need you, just the way you are.”

Sniffling, she blinked at him in disbelief, and then started to smile shakily. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. Don’t make me leave.”

“I don’t want you to. You know this means a shitstorm of trouble, Rodney.”

He shrugged and started stripping out of his jacket. “I’ll deal with it. I’ve weathered a few, hell, I’ve started more than a few, what’s one more?”

~*~

  


The infirmary was very quiet. Everyone was on edge awaiting the outcomes of the two emergency surgeries going on. Jonas, like everyone else, tiptoed around. He winced as the rubber sole of his shoe caught the tile and made a loud squeak. It drew the attention of the anxious man sitting in a chair outside the surgical bay.

Carrying over the cup of soup and a buttered roll wrapped in a napkin that he had brought from the mess hall, Jonas offered both to the man. “You should eat something, Sergeant.”

Markham-Stackhouse looked up at him with red-rimmed eyes. At first, Jonas thought he might refuse, but then he nodded and took the mug and the bread. Jonas sat beside him. No one would mind if the monthly checks of the pumps were put off for a day, so Jonas decided he could spend some time sitting with the guy.

After he sipped the last of the soup, the Sergeant set the mug on the floor beside his chair. “I can’t look. Is everything still happening in there?”

Jonas stood and walked to the observation window, peering down into the operating room. “The doctors are still working. They haven’t finished yet.”

“How about Commander Sheppard?”

Walking to the opposite window, overlooking the other operating room, Jonas watched as the FIU was wheeled from the room by Angie and Doctor Lam. Doctor Fraiser was still bent over Commander Sheppard’s abdomen. Jonas didn’t know much about surgery, but it was a mess down there, there was blood everywhere, more than he’d ever had to clean up after any surgery since he’d been working here.

“Still under the knife as well.”

Markham-Stackhouse closed his eyes and tilted his head back against the wall. “I can’t believe this is happening.”

Walking along the observation window, Jonas tried to see if he could read any of the machinery down in the room. He was too far away. He saw a lot of flashing lights on the panels, but he couldn’t make out any details.

“I heard the nurses talking; they said your _panor_ is really strong, that he’s a fighter. He’s been doing well so far.”

Nodding, he looked over at Jonas. “Our baby died. That woman killed our child. She might have killed Nate too.”

“I didn’t know about the baby. I’m sorry, Sergeant Markham-Stackhouse.” He had known there were other pregnant male _panor_ but he had not known Sergeant Stackhouse was one of them. 

“Doctor Lam came up and told me a while ago. She said that it was over quickly, the baby didn’t suffer much.” 

“Is there anyone I can call for you, Sergeant? Friends or family?”

Shaking his head, he buried his face in his hands and rested his elbows on his knees. “No, thanks. You can call me Jason. Laura will let our friends know. They’ll be here when the duty shift is over, I’m sure. We don’t have any family aside from each other; Nate and I were both orphans long before E Day.”

Jonas sat again. It seemed Jason wanted to talk. He could listen. He told Jonas about meeting Nate at a science lecture being given at a planetarium in the city near where they both lived. They had hit it off and bonded quickly. When they learned Jason could not conceive and was therefore exempt from the regulations about _keri_ serving in the military, they both joined the Air Services branch. They had gone through basic training together. They had been through everything together.

Once the floodgates opened, Jason couldn’t seem to stop talking. Jonas heard all about their acceptance for the Atlantis Expedition and how exciting their time here had been. Jason told him about how happy he had been about the baby, and how he suspected Nate had been more frightened about everything than he was letting on. 

There was a shuffle of footsteps near the door and Doctor Beckett appeared. Jason moved to stand, but Beckett waved him down. “He’s pulled through. There were two wounds. The first bullet pierced the placental sac and then lodged in muscle. The second hit his spleen, I’m afraid I had to remove a good portion of it.”

“Will he recover?”

“No recovery is a surety, lad. But he is strong, the wounds were clean and I’m very optimistic. Barring any post surgical infections or other complications, he should recover fully.”

“Thank you, Doctor Beckett. When can I see him?”

“This has been a strain on your system as well, you and Nate have a strong bond. I want you to go home and rest for two hours. By that time, Nate will be out from under the anesthetics and moved to the isolation room. Jonas, would you walk Jason to his quarters, see that no one disturbs him along the way?”

It seemed to be a reasonable request. “Sure thing, Doctor Beckett.”

A nurse called the doctor’s name, “I’ll see you later, I need to go now.”

When Beckett left, Jason looked at Jonas as he stood up. “You don’t have to.”

“I don’t mind. Gives me a chance to stop in and see my girl.”

Jason nodded and walked slowly from the waiting area, keeping his eyes carefully averted from the view through the windows. “They told me to wait here. I couldn’t look.”

“You should have told someone, they would have let you wait somewhere else.”

With a shrug, Jason replied, “I couldn’t be anywhere else. Thanks for sticking around; it was… well, thanks.”

They walked along in silence, Jason’s thoughts likely on his _panor’eten_. When they reached his quarters, Jonas asked, “Do you need anything? I could run up to the mess hall if you’re hungry and bring something back.”

“Nah. Thanks. I’m going to try to take a nap like the doc said, I am actually pretty beat. See ya around, Jonas.”

He didn’t have to knock anymore at Allie’s lab, so Jonas walked right in. She spun around on her stool and sniffled when she saw him, it appeared she had been crying. “I heard Commander Sheppard had been killed.”

“Rumor, it was just a rumor, sweetheart. He was shot, he’s in surgery, but he was still alive when I left the infirmary.” Jonas went to her side and she wrapped her arms around his waist. He stroked her hair and hugged her.

“Oh, thank God. Someone else was hurt too?”

He nodded, “Sergeant Stackhouse.” He crouched down and stroked her cheek. He couldn’t imagine how he would feel if it had been Allie up there today, if he had been the one waiting for three hours to hear whether she would live or die, if their baby had died. He threw his arms around her and hugged her tightly. “I love you Alison.” He hadn’t intended to say it, but he didn’t regret the words once they were out there.

“I love you too, Jonas,” she leaned into him and he just held her and thanked the gods for sending her into his life.

~*~

  


“Commodore?” A gentle squeeze of his toes and shake of his foot woke him. Carolyn Lam stood at the end of the bed, smiling.

“You have good news? Please tell me something that will make my mother stop crying.” Cam looked around. “Where is my mother?”

Lam pointed over her shoulder, “She’s checking out the FIU for herself. The transfer seemed to go well. The readings on the unit are all in the green. Unfortunately, as you know, Commander Sheppard is the only one that can get any sort of detailed information out of it, so we’ll have to wait for him to recover to tell us more.”

He sagged in relief against the mattress. Both John and the baby were alive. “Get Lorne to try, sometimes the FIU talks to him. Any more word on John?”

Lam came around to the side of the bed and grew more serious. “Doctor Fraiser is still working on him. She said to apologize to you, she did what she could, but she said she couldn’t save the egg sac, the bullet tore through the fallopian channel and the damage was too extensive.”

“So, no more babies.”

“I’m afraid not for Commander Sheppard-Mitchell.”

Cam nodded. He was more worried about John and the present and the two babies they had gestating than he was about hypothetical babies in the future. “Thank you, Doctor Lam.”

“I’m going to see what Sub Commander Lorne can do with the FIU; I’m on radios if you need anything.”

He closed his eyes and did a few of Teyla’s breathing exercises. Then he heard movement and opened his eyes to see Momma watching him with concern. “Do you need the doctor; are you having a problem breathing, honey?”

“No, no, just trying to be calm. You check everything out over there?”

She sat on the chair and fussed with the buttons on her sweater, pouting slightly. “I couldn’t see anything through that frosted glass, just a shadow. There aren’t any proper words on the thing either. You say Evan visited little Chloe in there every day?”

“Every day, without fail.”

“Did Carolyn say anything about John?”

Carolyn? Oh, she meant Doctor Lam. “He won’t be able to carry again. The egg sac didn’t survive the surgery.”

Momma nodded. “That happens a lot, from what I hear, even in non-emergency cases. I’ll say it once, and then I won’t ever say another word on the matter. Maybe it’s for the best, Cameron. That boy was never meant to carry. He was mighty upset over this baby.”

“I won’t argue with you. I shouldn’t have agreed to it so quickly when he asked. I was being greedy, Momma, I never thought he would say yes to it at all, and when it was his idea… I shouldn’t have gone along with him.”

“Things are what they are now. You rest. I’m going to go and get you some dinner.” Momma stood and walked over to look at the machine that was monitoring his blood pressure. She smiled and then kissed his cheek and ruffled his hair. “You keep doing those exercises. I’m really proud of you Cameron, you’re being very brave.”

Thankfully, she left before he started bawling. He didn’t feel brave, he felt scared. John could die. He closed his eyes and breathed slowly, counting and trying to send calming thoughts to his _keri_ along the bond, even though he was still sedated. The bond was a dual edge sword, it made him hyper aware of his _keri’s_ distress, but it also assured him that John was still alive. 

He dozed off; fatigue was still the worst symptom of the pregnancy. He woke at the smell of food being placed on the rolling table in front of him. Ronon smirked and threw himself into the chair beside the bed after arranging the table to his satisfaction. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Momma is over there with Lorne, she asked me to bring that.”

Cam nodded and toyed idly with the fork. He wasn’t very hungry. He pushed at the sweet potato gnocchi things. “This is one of John’s favorites,” he told Ronon. Dex just nodded. 

Morosely, he ate a few bites then set the fork down. “How much longer is it going to be?”

Ronon shrugged. “He’s alive. That’s what counts.”

“I know, doesn’t make waiting any easier.” 

He picked some more at his meal and then shoved it away when Beckett came into the curtained off area. “CB!”

“I figured you’d be awake. I just left the surgery, he’s stubborn, you know that? His heart failed twice, once on the way in and once during the surgery. We don’t know what the long term effects of the oxygen deprivation might be yet. But he survived the surgery. He took four bullets in total; one grazed his left arm, there was one in his upper thigh, another in his left side that bounced off a rib and nicked his lung before it lodged in the fallopian channel. The one in his chest was the troublemaker; it was close to his heart.”

Cam’s hands were trembling, he was shaking all over. John’s heart had stopped twice. “Four shots and they all missed the baby?”

“Aye. The angle of the arc was lucky for John.”

“How is Stackhouse?”

Beckett shook his head. “He wasn’t as lucky. The wee one didn’t make it. He should recover fully, barring any infections.” Beckett patted his leg and stood. “Rest as best you can. As soon as John is stabilized, we’ll let you see him.”

“If she wasn’t dead, Carson, I might kill Janelle for this.” Beside him, Ronon grunted in complete agreement.

~*~

  


Doctor Heightmeyer had been the one to come to his quarters and tell him. She sat him down on the sofa and slowly and carefully explained that Janelle had taken a knife and killed her doctor, and had tried to kill several other people. Dave was shocked. He couldn’t believe that his _panor’eten_ had been capable of such violence; at least not towards other people.

He understood, yes, he understood what Kate was telling him, Janelle was dead. She had threatened soldiers, had pulled a gun on them and she had been shot.

What he did not understand was how John figured into this. Kate said something about John, but Dave didn’t get it. “John? What?”

Kate took his hand and squeezed it. “Dave, one of the people Janelle shot was your brother.”

“Janelle shot John? No, she wouldn’t do that, there has to be a mistake. This must all be a mistake.”

“No, I’m afraid not. When she shot John, the marines shot her. I’m sorry.”

He shook his head, still not understanding completely. “Is my brother dead too?”

“He’s in surgery.”

Dave leaned back against the sofa cushions. “Janelle is dead. My brother is hurt.”

“Yes, Dave.”

“I should feel more about that than I do. There’s something very wrong with me. Why don’t I feel something?”

The Doctor patted his hand. “I think you will. A lot has happened. You just need time to process it.”

“What should I do? I don’t know what to do. My _panor’eten_ murdered a man. Do I have to go to jail now?”

She rubbed his arm and clucked her tongue. “No, no. Of course not, Dave. Look, I think maybe you should come up to the infirmary. Your brother’s family is there.”

“No, I can’t face them. My _panor’eten_ tried to kill John. They are going to hate me now. I brought her into this family. This is my fault.” How could he possibly ever look Cam Mitchell in the face again? He pulled away from the doctor. 

The doctor turned stern. “Dave, I want you in the infirmary where the nurses can keep an eye on you. This has been a shock. I do not want you here alone. Come with me. Please don’t make me call guards to come and take you up there.”

She was threatening him; she’d arrest him if he didn’t do what she said. He climbed to his feet and walked to the door. She followed him all the way to the infirmary and then led him to a gurney that a nurse pointed out. 

“Take off your shoes and belt and get comfortable, Dave. Would you like some scrubs to put on?”

He declined. His khakis were comfortable enough without the belt. She took it away when she left, saying she’d be back in a few minutes. 

What in the hell was going to happen now? John was hurt. Janelle was gone. He had not been to work in days, he wondered if he still had a job. This had to be the worst day of his life. 

“Hello, Dave.”

He looked up and saw Wendy Mitchell standing near the end of the gurney. Ashamed, he looked away. “Hello.”

She sighed and he heard rustling as she came nearer. Warm hands clasped his cheeks and forced him to look up. “Oh, Dave. What a horrible time you must be having.” Unable to deny it, he nodded slowly. “This wasn’t any of your doing; you know that, don’t you?”

He felt his cheeks growing warm and his eyes started to water. Why was she being nice to him? She should hate his fucking guts. She was John’s family now; John said she treated him like another son. “I didn’t know she would hurt him, I didn’t know, I didn’t know.” Once the words started, Dave could not stop them. He had no idea what he was saying. 

“Shh. I know. John knows. No one blames you, David. No one.” Warm arms had tugged him in and he was being held and rocked as he started to cry in great wracking sobs. He pressed his face into a soft sweater. He remembered his mother comforting him like this, and the memory of everything he had lost made him cry harder.

“I didn’t know. I couldn’t stop her, I couldn’t,” the words were coming, one over another, he couldn’t stop them. The horror of what had happened washed over him. He knew he started to scream, he felt pain in his throat. Wendy Mitchell held him as he wailed and shouted and cursed for what might have been hours.

After a while, he felt someone push the waistband of his pants down and then felt a sharp pain in the upper part of his ass. He cried until he couldn’t anymore, until whatever they had given him took effect and he stopped feeling anything.

~*~

  
“That poor boy. That poor broken boy,” Momma gasped as she walked up to Cam’s bedside, wringing her hands.

“Was that Dave I heard? Were you over there?”

Momma nodded and leaned against the edge of his bed. “He looked so lost, like he hadn’t a friend in the world. I just wanted to help, I went over to see if I could help, he’s John’s brother. I do hope I didn’t make things worse. They had to sedate him.”

“I wondered why he stopped so suddenly, I figured they had tranq’d him.”

She was upset. Cam reached for her hand. She took it and squeezed it. “The things he said, Cameron. The pain that boy is in.”

He nodded. John had been upset by Heightmeyer’s initial reports about Dave’s therapy. It was not going to be easy to get him back to a healthy state of mind; undoing years of abuse at Janelle’s hands might take years and years of therapy. “He’s hurting, Momma. He was hurting before today. I can’t tell you more, it isn’t my place.”

Cam smiled as he saw her come to a decision, saw the stubborn set of her jaw. “Well, that boy is family. He needs help.”

He knew Dave had just become Momma’s new project. Better Dave than Cam. Let her worry about someone else for a few weeks and leave Cam be for a bit. “Did Lorne get the FIU to tell him anything?”

“Only that everything is ‘functioning within normal parameters,’” she made air quotes.

Janet Fraiser came by and said Cam could see John for a minute. He climbed off the bed and followed the doctor, his nerves fluttering. For his protection, John was in an isolation room, and Cam had to put on a mask, a gown and gloves. He walked over to the bed and stroked a finger along John’s cheek. He was pale and his breathing was shallow, but Cam was relieved to see that he was breathing on his own.

“He’ll be fragile for a while. His body will have some adjusting to do to the hormonal changes and the shock to his system from the sudden loss of the pregnancy, as well as the removal of the egg sac and faux fallopian passage,” Janet said, adjusting the flow on an IV tube.

“Will we still be bonded?”

She patted his arm. “Those hormones are secreted from a gland at the base of the brain; they aren’t directly connected to the egg sac.”

“So, he’s still my _keri_.”

“Yes. I doubt very much that anything will ever happen to change that, Cameron. You’ve a true bond. Now a minute to visit and then I have to boot you out.”

Cam nodded. “Okay.”

Stroking John’s right arm, he nudged at John through the link as he spoke aloud. “Hey. Can you hear me? You are not allowed to check out. Not yet. You are not leaving me here with two babies to raise by myself, John Sheppard-Mitchell, do you hear me? Take a day or two to sleep this off and then enough. You’ve got a lot to do around here.”

Cam clasped John’s limp hand and squeezed it. “Don’t leave me. Don’t you dare.”

~*~

  
The low pinging of the monitor beside the bed was annoying as hell. Three days and Cam was already going nuts. How had John done this bedside vigil for months? Cam gave up on reading the paperback he’d grabbed off the lending library cart. It sucked and he was too distracted to forge his way through it at the moment. He tossed it onto the rolling table and leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes as he pinched the bridge of his nose with two fingers.

John had woken slightly, after the anesthesia wore off. Since then, he’d had been asleep ninety five percent of the time. He could be forced to respond to stimuli, though he did so sluggishly, and he answered to his name being called. It had been enough to satisfy Beckett that he was on the mend.

Cam wasn’t allowed to camp here for long; Beckett allowed him one hour three times a day. He opened his eyes and sat up, if he got caught napping, he’d be booted out of the infirmary and sent home to sleep.

He heard high-pitched chattered coming closer and smiled in greeting at Teyla and Torra. Torra’s eyes went wide as she took in John lying on the bed. “Hey Torra-bug, hi Teyla.”

“Unca John sick?” 

“A little bit. He’s getting medicine.” 

She accepted the answer and held her arms out to Cam, leaning out of Teyla’s arms to get to him. He carefully took her from her mother and settled her on his lap. She leaned against him, stuck her thumb in her mouth and gave a happy sigh. 

“Torra would not take her nap today until she saw that you and John were well. She was quite frightened the other day when you were taken from our quarters.” That news made him feel bad, knowing that he was the cause of a child’s fear. He hugged the toddler closer and dropped a kiss on the top of her head. 

He was willing to admit that they babied her, Cam especially. He missed his big extended family. There were always plenty of little children and babies to be passed around back home before E Day. He missed that so much. Since coming to Atlantis, his Momma had taken to Torra as if she were her own grandchild and spoiled her horribly. 

Teyla had moved over to John’s bedside and was brushing her fingers through his hair. Cam smirked behind his hand as he watched a look of puzzlement cross Teyla’s face as she tried to get the front to stand up as it usually did. Each time she let go, the strands flopped back down. 

“It’s too long and really needs to be cut. It won’t stay up without the goop he puts in it.” 

“I see,” she settled for smoothing the hair back from his face instead and then frowned at the result. “John does not look quite like himself this way. Has he woken today?” 

“Yeah, when the nurse came in and changed the tubing. He wasn’t happy. He didn’t come all the way around, but he sure fussed.”

A squeak of rubber soles on the tile nearby announced that Scottish dictator had arrived. “You’re over your time. Out!” Carson glared at Cam and tapped his watch. “And what’s this wee lass doing here?” He waggled his finger at Teyla, clucked his tongue and scowled, though there wasn’t much heat in the expression. 

Teyla smiled and stepped over to Cam, prepared to take Torra. “I was reassuring Torra that her uncles had not left Atlantis. Cameron, if you are leaving, perhaps you would walk with us? If you read a story to her, she might settle down to nap.”

He realized that Teyla must be having a really tough time with Torra to have prompted her to ask outright for help. How could he possibly refuse? “Sure, I’d be happy to.” Before he stood he reluctantly passed the sleepy girl over. She was well over the weight limit he was allowed to carry, despite his desire to hold onto her.

Leaning over the bedside he kissed John’s cheek and rubbed his hand. “I’ll be back at 1600.”

It took six readings of _Brown Bear_ and four passes of _Goodnight Moon_ before the stubborn child gave in and fell asleep. Cam tiptoed away from her bed, afraid to even give her a kiss, lest he wake her up and the demands for “more story” started up again. 

Flopped across a pile of floor cushions, Teyla looked exhausted. Settling himself beside her, Cam reached over and pressed his fingers to the back of her neck and began to slowly work out the knots he found in the usual place. Teyla sighed and then moaned gratefully. Soon, she was snoring lightly. 

Ronon came in as Cam was working his way down Teyla’s back, he gave a snort of amusement and leaned against the wall as he took in the sight of his boneless, snoring wife sprawled on the pillows. “Torra has been having bad dreams. Teyla’s not sleeping, and her people have been demanding lately, and she has been taking many of Lorne’s usual trade missions.”

“She did seem pretty wiped out. Torra just went down too.” Cam tipped his head towards the room where Torra slept. Quietly, Ronon went to the door and peeked in, checking on his daughter. He returned smiling and dropped down beside Cam to recline against the pillows. 

“How is John today?”

“Not much change. He was cranky when the nurse worked with him. I’ve never been so relieved to hear anyone whine the phrase ‘stop touching me’ before today.”

“What’s Beckett say?”

“That the surgical wounds are healing well, no sign of infection. He compared the brain wave functions and everything lines up with scans taken a few weeks ago, so he’s hopeful that there’s no permanent brain damage.”

Finishing the massage of Teyla’s hand, Cam shifted around and rearranged some pillows to get comfortable. He slipped one sandal off and pressed the heel of his hand into the ball of her foot. 

If anyone had told him two years ago that he would one day be sitting on a floor, pregnant, massaging the feet of a sleeping alien, he’d have thought them crazy. But here he was.

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My betas reaction to this chapter made me put the warning in. They also started calling me Baby Killer after I put this one up. *sigh*
> 
> The next chapter is a naughty bit. Charlie O'Neill getting some. You can totally skip it and go on to Chapter 14, if you want.


	13. Pron Break!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This bit is rated NC-17
> 
> Naughty bit. 
> 
> Charlie O'Neill getting some.
> 
> No worries if you skip it.

“Oh yeah, just like that.”

“Good?”

“Yeah, keep… left. Harder.”

He balanced on his knuckles and braced his knees as he thrust harder. Her fists were tangled in his hair and she was pulling with enough force to make his eyes water. Gritting his teeth he stared at the Ancient art fixture attached to the wall over her bed. It was ugly, he thought, clunky and unnatural.

“Come on, harder!” she urged, wrapping a leg around him and pulling him closer.

Bossy, this one was always so bossy. Served him right for hooking up with a soldier, though he had expected her to be softer, being a medic. He slammed into her, more interested in this being over than enjoying himself. It had been an entirely unsatisfactory encounter. Every hookup of late had been.

She was what he had always thought his type to be, blonde, nice tits and ass, long legs, a pretty face and a brain between her ears. And baseline, but nowadays on Atlantis, that wasn’t a guarantee of safe sex. He pulled out and came against her thigh.

“I wasn’t done,” she said breathily, tugging on his hair as he rolled to the side and wiped her off with the sheet.

He shrugged. “I was. Sorry.”

He reached a hand over and rubbed his fingers against her, but she wriggled out of his reach and shoved his hand away and snapped, “Never mind, I can do that myself.”

With a heavy sigh, he sat up, looking for his clothing. “I really… maybe later?”

“I don’t think so. I’m not what you need, we both know it. I don’t think we should do this anymore, really. You’re not here; you haven’t been here for months.”

Tugging on his pants, he had no response; she was right. It wasn’t just her; it was everyone he had been with since… since he’d made a mistake.

“Are you listening to me, Charlie?”

“Yeah. Okay, I get it. I’m sorry, I really am. You deserve better.”

She knelt on the bed and grabbed his hand as he walked past her. “Hey Charlie, I was just a little mad. I know it isn’t your fault. You’ve got the whole _panor_ thing going on, and no one can measure up to that. It has to suck for you.”

“Yeah, I’m gonna go, Tamara. No hard feelings?”

She squeezed his hand and let go. “Nah. I’ll see you around.”


	14. Si and Si

**April**  
After leaving Tamara's bed, Charlie walked around the base for a while. He had promised Lorne he’d look into the drug thing, so he was keeping half an ear to the ground for whispers of connections to the Gray or Black Markets. Work might take his mind off things. He headed to the bar over in Section Two, it was small, and they ran out of liquor frequently, but it was still a decent hangout. Someone had built a pool table, and there was always at least one card game going on.

Spotting an open table near the wall, he sat. Nancy the waitress shimmied over and leaned on the edge of the table. “You’re early tonight, Charlie. Another crappy date?”

Nancy had been one of his earlier failed hookups, she was a tease, but there was no heat behind it, so he didn’t take offense. “Yeah, things went south, Tamara and I are done.”

“That sucks. We’ve got some vodka tonight, Zelenka brought in a batch. Want some?”

“Only if it’s less than five, I’m pretty much out of trade credits until the next pay period.”

She smiled, “For you, two for one, five will get you a double.”

He pressed his thumb to the pad she held out, signing away the last of his spending money for the month. Luckily there were only four days to go until the next payroll. When Nancy brought the drink over, he crooked a finger to draw her closer. “Hey, is Pete busy? I’d like to ask him something.”

“I’ll check.”

He nursed his drink, making it last as long as possible. He watched the interactions of the people around the room, keeping an eye on the card game in the corner, alert for any shady dealings going on. Payroll credits couldn’t be traded on the Gray or Black Markets, but other things could.

“What’s up, buddy?”

“Hey Pete.” Charlie waved at the seat across from him. “You ever get people offering you liquor under the table?”

Pete dropped his bar rag on the table and held up his hands, “Everything I sell has been tested and cleared. Do you know what hoops I had to jump through to get this place up and running?”

“I can only imagine. I’m not making accusations. Just curious if you’ve had offers.”

“Yeah, a few. I don’t let any dealing go on here; I run the cleanest place I possibly can. I don’t even allow hookups in the john. I have cameras.”

Charlie was mildly disappointed; he’d hoped to find a lead here. “I’ll pass the word along.” He tipped his glass to the owner/bartender.

Rising from his chair Pete asked, “You a narc now, O’Neill?”

He chuckled and drained the last dregs from his glass. “I suppose I am, for one case anyway. Let me know if you hear anything, I’m working the Rollins murder.”

“Crazy crap. I was reading about it on the intranet updates. How the hell does something like that happen?”

“That, my friend, is precisely what I’m supposed to be figuring out. Any clue where she might have gotten the drugs?” Charlie threw it out there, Pete seemed to be cool with the questions, and it couldn’t hurt to toss the line and see if he got anything when he reeled it in. Even something else to use as bait would suffice at this point.

Pete shook his head. “Everyone knows I don’t put up with that kind of crap. But it has to be someone with access to a lab, making new batches, right? There can’t be that much contraband still floating around from the stuff people brought through with them on E Day.”

A scientist? That bore looking into.

“You know who else you should talk to, don’t you?” Pete said over his shoulder as he headed back to the bar. Charlie groaned, somehow knowing Pete was going to say the name of the one person Charlie had been avoiding for months.

“Go see Chuck.”

Fucking Chuck.

~*~

  


“You don’t look so good, Chuck.”

“I’m trying not to think about it Amelia. Leave me alone.”

She leaned over and squinted at him. “Are you gonna barf again?”

He ignored her, and when that didn’t chase her off, he made a retching sound and leaned towards her, which made her scoot back in alarm. He settled back into his seat and continued working on the security reports.

“You make me sick, Chuck.”

“No I don’t, you love my sense of humor Amy.” She stuck her tongue out at him and returned to her work.

He became engrossed in the reports he was reading and didn’t look up immediately when someone came over to stand in front of his work station. When the man cleared his throat, Chuck glanced up. Crap.

“O’Neill.”

“Campbell.”

“What brings you up here?” Chuck asked, trying to keep things civil.

Apparently trying to do the same, O’Neill crossed his arms and looked around the Control Room. “I’m working on the Rollins murder. Could I ask you a few questions?”

“I’m working.”

Charlie frowned. “I’m working a case.”

“I’ve got reports to compile…”

O’Neill held up a hand. “Don’t make me go to Lorne with this, Chuck, just a few questions, then I’ll leave.”

“Fine. Amy, cover the long range sensors, please?”

“Sure thing,” she replied and scooted her seat over slightly so that she could watch both terminals.

Chuck pushed back away from the console and stood up.

“Holy shit, you’re pregnant?!?”

Pointing a warning finger at O’Neill’s nose to shut him up, Chuck tossed his head towards the conference room.

As soon as the doors were closed, Charlie waved a hand at Chuck’s distended stomach. “What the hell? How did you keep this secret?”

Chuck crossed his arms and glared. “I do my work and go home. Amelia’s been grabbing my meals for me, I avoid the mess hall. I don’t walk around in crowded areas. I didn’t want everyone to know.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

Leaning against the edge of the conference table, Charlie shoved his hands in his pockets, “Why didn’t you want anyone to know?”

“I don’t know if I’m keeping it. There’s dozens of couples that can’t have children that want one,” Chuck shrugged it off, though he was very uncomfortable with the topic. It wasn’t anyone’s business but his own.

Charlie’s mouth dropped open. “You’d fucking sell your own kid?”

With a huff of irritation, Chuck slashed the air with his hands. “Who said anything about selling? Forget it, O’Neill; what the hell did you want to ask me? I have work to do.”

“I’d been led to believe you had your fingers in the Gray Market, I’m beginning to doubt that, you can hardly be heavily involved if you’ve been hiding.”

“I know people. I used to be more active, not anymore. What do you want to know?”

Charlie pushed away from the table and pulled a chair out, offering it to Chuck. “Sit, you’re making my back hurt looking at you.” Grateful, because his back was killing him, Chuck sank down onto the chair and clasped his hands on his knees. “Drugs. Is there a source here in the city, from before E Day?”

“There was. He’s dead now. The Wraith got him. The other guy didn’t come back here when the Expedition returned from Earth. I haven’t heard of anyone else, but people didn’t come to me for that, I was more of a coffee, condom and chocolate kind of guy.”

Sighing, Charlie leaned back against the table again. “Any idea who might know the kind of guy I’m looking for?”

O’Neill said he was working the Rollins killing, which meant finding the person behind hurting Sheppard and Stackhouse. Chuck had never been a squealer, but this had apparently gotten out of hand. This wasn’t just a bottle of untest or some weed to mellow out any more. People were getting killed. “I don’t know for certain, but Dwyer, one of the lab techs, has a rep for being a stoner.”

“Thanks, Chuck.”

Staring at the floor near O’Neill’s feet, Chuck said quietly. “I don’t want anyone to get hurt.”

“I kinda got that about you. You’re a nice guy, Chuck. Look, I probably owe you an apology.”

“Forget it.”

Charlie crossed the room to stand in front of him. “Listen, it just got out of hand. I never meant…”

He didn’t want to hear it again. He held a hand up and hissed, “I get it, all right, I get it. I said forget about it. No harm done.”

O’Neill snorted and pointed at Chuck’s swollen belly. “No harm done? No harm done? You’re pregnant, Chuck!”

Struggling to his feet, Chuck went towards the door. “No one knows. No one is going to know. Your little secret is safe. So, go back to your safe little hetero world and leave me alone, O’Neill.”

Having the advantage of speed, Charlie dashed to the door and blocked Chuck’s way. “Give me a break, here, Chuck. You kept this from me. I’m still a little freaked out.”

“Yes, I believe that was your excuse for leaving; you were a little freaked out.”

Running both hands through his hair, Charlie blew a breath out and made an aggravated noise. “I… just… wait.” He stalked away, pacing around the room. When he was as far from Chuck as he could get, he spun and said, “I was out of control. It wasn’t me…”

“It was the PSG, I know, heard it.” Chuck crossed his arms and glared. He was actually sort of enjoying this. He had not intended to tell O’Neill anything, but this was turning out to be a nice bit of revenge.

O’Neill dropped into a chair and deflated. “I thought I was straight. I like women. I thought I liked women. Then… you know… and everything has been different.”

“We’re not bonded, O’Neill, I’m not holding you to anything.”

Charlie looked up at him and stared. “Why aren’t we? Everything I ever read… why aren’t we bonded… we…” O’Neill waved his hand between them.

“We fucked?”

“Yeah, we fucked, why aren’t we stuck together like glue?”

Chuck shrugged. “Age, hormone levels, distance, and it’s quite obvious we’re not a true bond. You were just a sperm donor, O’Neill. Get over it. It’s done with.”

He burst out of the chair and dashed across the room, again getting between Chuck and the door. “That’s my kid too.”

Jutting out his chin, Chuck met O’Neill’s eyes for the first time since that night six months before. “Are you making a claim?”

~*~

  


Was he making a claim?

How had this gotten so out of control? Charlie stared back at Chuck, the guy that he had not been able to stop thinking about, no matter how many women he took to his bed. It had been the last good sex he’d had… who was he kidding? It had been the best sex he had ever had. With a guy. One night had changed everything; nothing had come close to that since.

Fucking Chuck.

“I think I hate you,” Charlie whispered as he glared into the face that he had been unable to stop thinking about. Time and distance had done nothing to make him forget.

“Right back at you.”

Not knowing what in the hell he was doing, Charlie reached out and cupped the back of Chuck’s head with one hand, pulling him forward and bringing their lips together. “Really hate you.” He hadn’t meant to kiss Chuck. Kissing had not been his intent. He wanted to stay as far away from Chuck Campbell and the things he made Charlie think about as possible.

Just like the last time, Charlie felt the knot of heat start to coil in his gut. He pressed closer to Chuck and slipped his tongue into Chuck’s mouth as soon as he opened his lips. Charlie moaned, digging his fingers into Chuck’s scalp. He pulled back, letting go of Chuck and flattening himself against the door. “I don’t like guys.”

“So you’ve said. I’m none too thrilled with you right now, O’Neill. Let me out.”

Charlie knew if he moved, Chuck was going to go out that door and never speak to him again, he could see it. “I hurt you, and I’m sorry.”

“I’ll accept the apology. It doesn’t change anything though.”

He had completely fucked this up. What in the hell was wrong with him? “I’m totally messed up, you know that? I haven’t been able to… I think about you all the time.”

“I haven’t seen you in seven months, Charlie, so how am I supposed to believe that?” Chuck crossed his arms and glared up at him.

Clearing his throat and looking at the ceiling for a minute before looking back at Chuck, he said quietly, “I guess I was afraid of what would happen if I saw you again.” He really hated talking about mushy feelings stuff. “I didn’t expect this…” he reached out one hand and brushed his fingers across Chuck’s belly.

Chuck took a half-step back. “Yeah, well, I didn’t want you to know. Like I said, I wasn’t going to keep it, and I didn’t see any point in hurting you with the information.” Chuck caught his hand, and Charlie looked down and stared at their fingers.

“So, you don’t want it at all?”

Chuck looked away and shrugged. “I can’t do it alone.”

“What if you weren’t alone?”

With a snort Chuck shook his head, “Not happening. I dipped my foot in the pool once and look what happened; I got you. I can’t do this again. I’m better off alone.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“You don’t know me. You didn’t even stick around long enough for the sheets to dry, O’Neill.” Chuck pushed at Charlie’s shoulder, trying to get him to move away from the door.

“I freaked out. I completely freaked out. Stop for a minute. Just, please, let me…” Charlie leaned down and caught Chuck’s lips in a soft kiss, exploring, tasting.

Chuck shoved him back, “I’m not a science experiment!”

“I didn’t say you were! Damn it, Chuck, I have dreams about you, I wake up hard remembering that night, and I can’t even jack off without seeing you. This isn’t an experiment.”

“That’s really romantic.”

Banging his head back against the door, Charlie said, “I never, ever claimed to be romantic. I don’t do hearts and flowers. This situation makes no sense to me because it is completely illogical. There’s no pattern, there’s no way to make it fit. I don’t do emotional!”

Tilting his head, Chuck gave him a little smile as he realized O’Neill was telling the truth. “You really don’t, do you?”

Letting out a heavy sigh, Charlie shook his head.

In the face of that admission, Chuck had one of his own. “I think about you too. A lot. It was probably the hormones, mating instinct and all.”

“Does that all work when you’re like this?”

Chuck shrugged. “I dunno. Look, I have to go back to work.”

When Chuck tried for the door again, Charlie blurted, “Have dinner with me.”

“What?”

“Come to the mess hall and have dinner with me. Just two normal people, having a meal together.”

Crooking an eyebrow, Chuck stared at him. “No, I don’t think so. The fewer people who know about the baby, the better.”

“Are you ashamed to be seen with me?”

“Ordinarily, no. Now, yes.”

Charlie pursed his lips. “I suppose I deserve that.”

“I’m _keri_ , you’re _panor_ , people will get the wrong idea.”

“They’ll get the the right idea. I’m the baby’s father.”

“We’re not bonded.”

“Bonded enough.”

Chuck waved his hands and shook his head. “Not at all.”

“I can’t stop thinking about you. You’re in my head. That’s like bonded, isn’t it?”

“No. You’re fucking reaching, O’Neill.”

There was a pounding on the door and then it opened and Amelia stuck her head in when it slid open. “You okay in here, Chuck?”

“I’m fine.”

“Just checking, your duty shift is almost over. I told Lorne you were talking to O’Neill when he came looking for you. He said to log you out, Stan came in early, he’ll cover for you.”

“Thanks, Amelia.”

“See you tomorrow.” She ducked out the door again.

“Dinner?”

“Why?”

“Because… what if there’s something here? What if it could be a real bond? Sometimes it isn’t instant, it takes time to cement. We’re compatible, I mean, hell, look at you, you got knocked up on the first shot.”

“Again, you are so damned romantic, O’Neill.”

“Please. Give me another chance to do this right?”

Chuck pursed his lips and began to shake his head.

“It isn’t just about the sex, Chuck, I screwed it up. We should be friends. We made a kid together, for crying out loud!”

“So, now you want to be friends? You came in here and said you hated me.”

“I hate the situation, I don’t hate you. I don’t like being confused; I don’t like not being…”

“In control. You are such a textbook _panor!_ ”

“Chuck.”

“This is stupid. I shouldn’t have brought you back to my quarters. We have the same name! Do you know how stupid this is?”

“What? You mean your name is Charles too?” Charlie pulled an expression of mock surprise and Chuck cuffed him upside the head. Charlie figured he deserved it.

Charlie smiled, “C’mon, give me a chance? We’ll do it your way; I’ll grab dinner and come to your quarters. We can watch a movie.”

“Kiss me again. One shot, so make it good; convince me you’re not still having your homosexual crises.”

He could do this. He leaned in, a little awkwardly because he was conscious of the bump between them and didn’t want to hurt either Chuck or the baby. He shoved the thought of the baby aside - that was a freak out for later, when he was alone.

Charlie touched his hands to Chuck’s face, letting his fingers drag along the end of the day stubble. He rubbed a thumb over Chuck’s lips and then framed his face in both hands. He pressed their lips together, softly, smoothly, with intent. Kissing was okay. He could get into kissing. Chuck groaned a little and opened his mouth as Charlie ran his tongue over Chuck’s lips. He slid his hands down over Chuck’s neck and then grasped his shoulders for a while before sliding his arms around and embracing him fully.

They had not done this, the last time. The last time it had been all heat and lust and a need to take, a complete loss of control. This was warm, it was almost comfortable. He felt Chuck’s hands touch his chest and then slide down his sides to rest at his waist. Charlie slanted his mouth and stroked his tongue inside Chuck’s mouth, deepening the kiss as well as the embrace.

Chuck pulled away first, breathing deeply. “Okay, okay, so yeah, maybe there’s something… dinner, movie, talk.”

“I can do dinner, movie and talk. I’ll be by at eighteen thirty.”

Chuck hit the door release and slipped out, leaving Charlie there catching his breath.

~*~

  


“Hungry, kid?” Charlie looked over his shoulder and felt his stomach drop as he saw his dad and Sam right behind him in the food line. His dad was eyeing the large stack of food on the tray.

“Having dinner with a friend. How’s the peanut?” Charlie shifted his tray to one hand and stroked the other over Hope’s head where it peeped out of the sling across Sam’s chest.

Sam leaned over and kissed his cheek. “Getting heavier. We missed you at poker night; Skaara was looking for a rematch.”

“I’m doing some casework for Lorne on the side, I couldn’t make it.”

He walked out onto the balcony and over to the table by the railing as they sat down. His dad asked, “I guess you won’t join us? So, is your date with the redhead from Stores, the blonde medic or the little Russian girl from Engineering?”

“None of them actually. I’m not seeing any of them anymore.” How would it sound, how would his dad would react if he told him the truth, right here, right now, in the middle of the mess hall?

“Oh? Someone new?”

He gripped the edges of the tray so hard his knuckles were white. “Uh, not exactly.” What would they say? Was it obvious? Was it ridiculous? Was he deluding himself?

He placed the tray on the table and slid onto the chair beside his father. “So uhm…” as Sam and his dad both looked at him expectantly, he lost his nerve. “Never mind. This probably isn’t the place. I’ll see you guys later.”

“Charlie, sit down.” His father caught his arm and tugged him back to the seat as he got up. “It’s quiet enough, we can talk, there’s no one around. What’s the matter?”

Charlie stared down at his lap. This was a mistake. His father was a big, tough soldier, he wouldn’t get it. He’d heard stories about people being disowned by old-fashioned parents that couldn’t handle their choices in same-sex mates. This was not a discussion he had ever had with his old man, he had no idea how this news would go over, if he could possibly get the words out. “It’s kinda… I made a really big mistake, Dad. I got involved with someone, had a one night stand and ran out and made a mess of things.”

Jack bit into a carrot and asked, “She isn’t willing to forgive you and work it out?’

“I think... he might be,” Charlie tried to swallow the lump in his throat as he choked out the reply.

The noisy chewing stopped. Charlie clenched his hands in his lap and refused to look up.

“He? Well, that’s news.” His father’s hand fell onto his shoulder and gave a squeeze. “So then, what’s the problem?”

He looked up to see his dad looking at him with concern. Not with disgust or anger, just with concern about his problem. A glance at Sam showed the same concerned interest on her face. “You don’t care if I’m with a guy?”

“Not if you’re happy, son. That’s more important than anything else. But you’re not happy, are you?”

“At the moment, no. I screwed things up so much. I freaked out and said some stuff and ran out and then avoided him for the last seven months. He avoided me too. We had a mutual avoidance thing going on.”

Chewing a bite of his sloppy joe, his dad nodded in understanding. When he had swallowed, he said, “I guess you ran into each other again?”

“At work. Yeah. It was still there, whatever it was that pushed us together in the first place. I suck at this kinda stuff, Dad.”

“Join the club. So, dinner?”

“And a movie.”

“Start slow, son, ease in and see how it goes. Sure, with a baseline, you can’t expect the bells and whistles that go with a bonding, but you can have a fulfilling relationship. Sad fact of life, there aren’t enough _keri_ for everyone to pair up permanently. I never cared for the law against it, I say take what happiness you can get.” His dad crunched down on a fried almost-potato chip.

Charlie sagged in the seat, in for a penny, in for a pound. “Uh, I told you I made a mess of things? He’s _keri_.”

His dad dropped his sandwich and Sam made a small squeak of surprise. After swallowing the bite he’d just taken, his dad looked at him in shock. “Charlie?”

“And he’s carrying.”

His father pointed a finger at Charlie’s nose after he stared at him silently for a full minute. “Chuck Campbell!?! You’re the one…” Now Charlie saw the disappointment he had expected to see earlier.

It kinda sucked having a dad with the highest security clearance imaginable. Of course his dad knew the name of every expectant _keri_ on the base. How could Charlie have expected otherwise?

“Yeah.”

“Chuck is a good man, very intelligent. I think I heard that he was renegade schooled,” Sam said calmly, fussing with Hope’s sling.

“I didn’t know, Dad. He never told me about the baby.”

His dad frowned, “But you didn’t check on him, did you? That was more than a little irresponsible, Charlie.”

“I figured the bond didn’t take, it didn’t feel like it took. I never heard from him again, I never thought he’d conceived.” Charlie sat back in his chair and toyed with the edge of the tray. The sandwiches he’d picked up were cold to begin with, they would keep. He could stay another few minutes before he ran the risk of being late.

“Jack,” Sam said quietly as his dad looked like he was about to shout. She held a hand up at her _panor’eten_ to silence whatever he had been about to say. “What are you going to do, Charlie?” Sam asked.

“Have dinner, watch a movie, talk.” Charlie looked over at his father. “It’s my baby, Dad. He plans to give it away.”

Sighing heavily, Jack seemed to be calm again. “I’d say you’ve got a little time to make him reconsider, if that is what you want to do. So, go on, have your dinner and a movie, and talk to him.”

~*~

  


He rang the chime nervously. When Chuck answered the door, Charlie held up the tray. “They had sloppy joes, but my dad likes them, which immediately tells me not to order them. Turkey-ish sandwiches okay?”

“Sure, I’m not picky, I’ll eat almost anything.” Most of the original expedition members were like that. Food had gotten scarce back then; they’d eaten a lot of stuff that would have barely qualified as food back on Earth. 

“Except?” Charlie asked, carrying the tray to the small table and setting it down. 

“Stewed _filpi_ buds,” Chuck made a nasty face as he stuck out his tongue. 

Charlie pulled out a chair and waited for Chuck to sit before taking the seat across from him. “I’ve never been that adventurous in my eating.”

“Out here, you’ll learn.”

“It is taking some getting used to. I was a bit spoiled; I was enjoying being a city boy.”

Chuck tore a piece of his sandwich off, “You weren’t raised on SGO bases?”

“As a little kid, yeah. I went to school in New York, Columbia University, and then did a master course in Criminal Justice at Boston University.” 

“I wish I could have done that.”

Charlie swallowed the bite of sandwich in his mouth quickly. “I forgot, I’m sorry I mentioned it. I completely forgot about the law. That always burned me. It was wrong, not allowing _keri_ to go to college.”

“My father felt the same way. He taught me anyway.”

“Really?” It seems the rumor Sam had heard was a fact. 

“Math, engineering, drafting. He was a professor of Engineering. We moved frequently, he made a lot of people angry because of his views on education. He got fired a lot.”

Charlie had grabbed a bowl of fruit and reached for it, pulling the lid off and spearing a chunk of pineapple. It was a favored taste of home, one of the most successful crops on the mainland. He offered the bowl to Chuck, who waved it off. “I would have probably done the same as your dad and taught my kid anyway.”

“Broken the law?”

“For my kid? Yeah,” Charlie nodded. 

They ate in silence for a while. “I was thinking, after we talked. I apologize, for not telling you. I was pissed, but I should have let you know. Surprising you like that was wrong.”

Charlie nodded and finished eating his sandwich as Chuck picked at salad and fruit. “You must be scared. I’d be terrified.” Charlie tipped his head at Chuck’s middle.

He looked down and nodded, “Yeah. It’s weird. I never knew any male _keri_ that had been through this.”

“I only knew three other _keri_ before I came here,” Charlie replied. “Not a lot of them on base, and none at school. Sam was the first _keri_ I ever had an adult conversation with in my life.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I was surprised you talked to me, and shocked when you asked me back here. Are we ready for that movie? What are we watching?”

Chuck smiled and pushed away from the table. “I’ve got some cheesy sci-fi, some cheesier sci-fi and a couple of martial arts.”

“Any Godzilla?” Charlie asked as he sat on the sofa beside Chuck as he turned on the laptop. 

“Are you kidding? You like Godzilla?” Chuck grinned at him.

“I love Godzilla.”

~*~

  


Sighing, Carson turned away from the screen he had just deactivated. The call he had been expecting for some time had finally come from Hoff. Over the past few months, Perna had shifted more and more of the research project to her assistants and Carson had seen less and less of her. Today’s call had been to wrap up some loose ends on the current experiment. He supposed he was a loose end as well, their flirting was done. She told him she was cutting her hours on the project as she was getting married.

He had known it wouldn’t last, but it was nice, for a short time, to have someone. Even the long distance relationship had been a comfort. 

Jonas walked past his office, and Carson felt a twinge of jealousy. The Langaren and Alison Porter were disgustingly happy. The affair was still technically illegal, but everyone was looking the other way because a pregnancy had come out of it. 

Legalities. Beckett rubbed a hand over his face. In the aftermath of E Day and A Day, the law had been something to cling to, something familiar. It made sense in light of their continuing fertility issues to uphold the Keri Laws. But now? If this genetic upheaval was to become the norm, if _panor_ could carry, if conception could take place outside the bond again, the law had to be changed. 

For him, it was too late, he had lost his chance to speak up and try for something more with Perna. Even if the law changed now; the first woman he had felt any romantic interest towards in years was lost to him. 

Usually, he didn’t notice that he was alone. He was too wrapped up in his work; he was a bad match for most women. He was historically inattentive, distracted and absent, if his exes were to be believed. 

He debated pulling the bottle from his desk drawer and having a bracing shot. But it was still early; he had another set of rounds to do. He wanted more than a shot.

Forcing himself up from his chair, he plastered on his professional face and went out into the infirmary. Stackhouse was his most pressing concern, he had spiked a fever and there were signs of an infection that worried Carson. He had not come out of the anesthesia very well, he’d yet to come fully awake. He was weak and a battle with a major infection might kill him. 

He had convinced Jason not to spend every waking hour in the chair beside his _panor’ten’s_ bed; Markham-Stackhouse needed time away and real rest. A pining _keri_ could conceivably work themselves into illness. Treating one member of a bonded pair meant treating the other as well, to an extent. Reluctantly, after Commodore Mitchell had intervened at Carson’s behest, Jason had agreed to go back on duty and work for a few hours in the morning and a few in the afternoon. The work was keeping his mind off Nate’s deteriorating condition. 

Looking over the latest test results, Carson was pleased with the improvements. The infection seemed to be abating, Nate’s fever was gone, his blood counts looked good. If only he’d regain consciousness, Carson would be reassured that Stackhouse was going to pull through this.

He smiled at Jason and told him, “He’s doing better. I’m pleased with the progress. You need to go eat and sleep, so take a few minutes and then skedaddle.”

The Sergeant nodded and stood up to stretch. Making a note on the chart to test Nate’s reflexes on the next round, Carson went to check on his other troublesome patient.

~*~

  


Waking up after being injured always hurt. But this? This was agony. John opened his eyes and pain flooded over him as he regained full consciousness. “CAMERON!”

“I’m here, I’m right here. Easy, easy. I’m sorry _keri_ , they had to stop the morphine drip. Shh.”

“Hurts,” John whimpered as his _panor’eten_ gathered him as close as he could and held him as he trembled with the pain.

Cameron gently lowered him down and hissed across the bed, “Can’t you give him something else?”

“I have. It’s much less potent; he’ll have to level down to it, I’m sorry, John.” The doctor was squeezing John’s hand and watching him carefully.

“Yeah. Okay. I’ll be okay, Cam,” John’s voice was raspy. 

Cameron leaned over and kissed his forehead, smoothing his hair back. “Good to see you awake, buddy.”

“Not so much fun here. Why the hell do I hurt so much?”

Beckett held a hand up when Mitchell would have answered. “What do you remember, John?”

“Breakfast. Waking up here.”

“That is not unusual; you seem to have lost some time,” CB said.

Shifting to try to get comfortable, John’s chest felt like it was on fire. “Did something fall on me?” Realization hit him as he felt pain in his middle. He knew something was different, something was wrong. He tensed and clenched at his partner’s hand. “Oh God, Cameron, the baby?” 

Cameron clasped his hand and squeezed, smiling with reassurance. “The baby is in the FIU.”

Relieved, John slumped back against the pillows. “What happened?”

“You were shot, four times.”

John groaned, “I feel shot four times. Who did it?” 

“Janelle. She got herself super-charged on something, overpowered her guard, stabbed Doctor Rollins and tried to shoot up the Gate Room. You, Stackhouse and AG-2 went after her.”

Looking confused, John asked, “Why don’t I remember this?”

“It might come back, though it might not. Amnesia of a traumatic event is common,” CB said gently as he checked the dressing on John’s abdomen.

“Did we get her back here?”

Cameron gave him a tight-lipped frown and shook his head. “Not alive. The marines responded with deadly force.”

At the news, John nodded. He would not have expected any differently, knowing his men. “The baby?”

“According to the lights on the FIU, and what Lorne was able to coax out of it, everything seems to be fine so far. I’m sure you’ll be able to badger more information out of it, it likes you better than Evan.” 

He felt a little dopey and he could hear that his words were slurring. The new medication was kicking in and the pain was not as bad as it had been. “Ev’s too impatient. He needs to be more persuasive.”

CB patted John’s arm, the one that didn’t hurt. “I think someone’s fading a bit.”

“How’s the pain, John?” Cameron asked, rubbing his knuckles over John’s cheek. 

“Not so bad. Maybe a five. Or sixty. Or turquoise.”

“Okay, stop thinking _keri_. You need to rest for a while.”

Feeling Cameron’s relief through the bond, John relaxed and smiled at his _panor’eten_ as things started to go gray around the edges. “Momma?”

“Will be here later. Rest for a while, love.” Cameron kissed his cheek and John stopped fighting to stay awake.

~*~

  
Doing another set of rounds before his official duty shift ended, Carson sighed heavily as he saw that Jason Markham-Stackhouse was still in the infirmary, despite having been chased out earlier. He must have slipped back in when the nurse’s duty shift changed. He was slumped over his _panor’eten’s_ legs, asleep.

Shaking the young man’s shoulder gently, he said, “Jason, it’s very late, I don’t want you sleeping on my patient. Let me get you to a bed.” Carson was ready to throw in the towel and let the Sergeant stay the night; he’d talk with him in the morning again about the visiting hours.

Jason let himself be tugged up out of the chair and led towards the bed next to Nate’s. He stumbled against Carson and blanched. “I don’t feel so good.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Dizzy, nauseous.” 

Jason’s forehead felt a little bit hot when Carson pressed a hand to it. The man had been running himself ragged; it was entirely possible that he was ill. “Let’s check you over lad, shall we? Come along.” Since it was only a few steps away, Carson steered him towards the Ancient scanner, practically carrying him along. “Any pain?’

“No. I just feel sick.”

Beckett helped him up onto the machine and patted his arm. “Breathe in slowly. It might simply be brought on by stress; you’ve certainly had a rough few days, Jason.” 

His patient just nodded in response, keeping his eyes squeezed tightly shut. Carson shouldn’t have been surprised to see what he was seeing on the screen, the City’s mucking about with their innards had been stumping them left and right with improbabilities. 

It seemed that Markham-Stackhouse was not a sterile _keri_ after all. The scanner showed an enlarged egg sac, indicative of pregnancy. He made a mental note to go back over Markham-Stackhouse’s medical records and see what the diagnoses for the cause of the sterility had been. Others in the city might be similarly affected. Before he delivered any news to his patient, however, he wanted to do a sonogram. The ultrasound might be a primitive Earth technique, but it still gave them a clearer picture of fetal development than the Ancient scanner did in the early stages of pregnancy.

“Jason, I want to do an ultrasound on you. Do you feel up to walking over there?” Carson pointed towards the station they had set up in the corner of the infirmary. “I’ll get a chair if you need it.”

“I’ll walk.” Groaning as he had to get up and move again, Jason rolled off the scanner and shuffled along beside the doctor to the corner. “I’m gonna…” Having anticipated this, Beckett held the bucket for him as he threw up his dinner. After getting him up on the exam table, he handed Jason a cup of water to rinse with and a mint tablet to get the taste out.

Getting his patient settled, he ran the scan. He blinked at the screen for a while and stared at it thoughtfully. Beckett tapped his radio. “Janet, luv, would you meet me by the ultrasound machine, please?”

Doctor Fraiser came over as Beckett was squirting another glop of chilly gel over Jason’s belly. “Hello Jason,” she greeted, which made Jason open his eyes and give her a feeble wave. “Carson, is there something going on?”

“Possibly. I wanted another set of eyes to be sure.”

She nodded and went to the machine and twiddled some dials. She leaned over Carson’s arm and peered intently at the screen and clicked a few buttons. “Move to the right, Carson, let me see that quadrant there.”

“Huh. Well,” she grunted and stood back and rubbed her cheek as she stared at the screen as Carson moved the sensor wand. 

“What’s wrong?” Jason asked trying to sit up. He went white as a sheet as nausea hit him again.

Scooting over to his side on the wheeled stool, Beckett made a shushing sound and pushed on Jason’s shoulders. “Easy lad. Nothing is wrong, as such. You’re carrying.”

Markham-Stackhouse’s eyes went wide and he shook his head in denial. “That’s impossible. I’m sterile. I went through dozens of different tests in order to join Air Services. I’m certified sterile, Doctor Beckett.”

“The changes the city instigated seem to have corrected whatever was causing the problem. You are carrying, Jason.” He turned the screen around so that Jason could see it.

“I’m pregnant?” Jason whispered as a hopeful little smile crept onto his face. “This is impossible. How can this be? ”

Carson crossed his arms and grinned. “I’m learning to adapt these days to what can and cannot happen anymore. 

Doctor Fraiser was smiling as she said, “Everything looks good. The sac is intact. The lining looks to be an adequate thickness.”

Jason looked at Beckett suddenly and grabbed his arm. “We can’t tell Nate yet.”

“I agree with you on that. I think we should wait a while. He’s still not fully back with us, I’d rather not add to his confusion until he’s much more stable.” Carson followed the young man’s gaze to where his wounded _panor’eten_ was resting across the infirmary. 

Nate had lost his baby. But Jason was carrying. 

God took with one hand and gave with the other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This rolled into some C & C - Chuck and Charlie pron. 
> 
> You can skip to Chapter 16 if you'd like to give the naughty bit a miss.


	15. Si & Si Pron!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is rated NC-17
> 
> There are naughty bits here. 
> 
> Charlie and Chuck naughty bits. 
> 
> The evening leaves Chuck a little confused about the nature of sex between _panor_ and _keri_ which will get a little resolved in the next chapter. 
> 
> So, you can skip the sex part if you like and go on to Chapter 16

Five days, four dinners, and ten Godzilla movies after Charlie started dating Chuck, he turned to Chuck when the movie was over and kissed him. That in itself wasn’t too unusual; they’d kissed a few times and the previous night they had made out pretty intensely. What was unusual was that Chuck shyly asked Charlie to stay the night. 

Surprised, Charlie blinked at him a few times. “Are you sure? I thought we were going to, you know, take it slow, try to be friends.”

“I’m sure. I’m also so horny I can’t see straight.”

“Is it safe? I don’t want to do anything that will…”

Chuck laughed. “Safe, for a few more weeks anyway. I’m disgustingly healthy, Doctor Beckett said so. If you even want to, I mean, I’m huge. This is not remotely sexy. Forget I said anything.” He wrapped his arms around his bulging middle and hunched over a little, looking away from Charlie. 

Charlie stood up and held his hand out. “C’mon. We’ll figure something out. Don’t forget, I knew you when you were skinny.” He led Chuck to the bedroom and laughed when Chuck detoured to the bathroom. When Charlie came out after taking his turn, Chuck was in bed, curled on one side. 

“I’ve never done this.”

Chuck made a wry face. “Yes you have, right here in this bed. I know, I was there.”

“Not that, goofball.” Charlie swatted his shoulder. “Had a sleepover, spent the whole night.”

Chuck began to laugh. “You’re kidding me?”

“Nope, never.”

He got under the covers and slid up behind Chuck, curling around him. He slid one hand down to rest on Chuck’s hip, the other he rested under his head. “So, you mentioned being horny, is that a general statement, or do you want to do something?”

Chuck shrugged and mumbled something into the pillow. 

“I didn’t catch that.”

He wriggled and flopped over onto his back. “I want to… play.”

“Okay, we can play.” Charlie glanced down and couldn’t help but notice the tent at the front of Chuck’s boxers. “Do you want to play Science Experiment?”

Smiling, Chuck looked over at him. “How do we play that?”

“I’m the scientist, and you’re the experiment. You just have to stay there and be really still.” Charlie was making this up as he went, but it seemed to be setting Chuck at ease, so he rolled with it. 

“I can do that.”

“Stop means stop and no means no, are we clear, Chuck?”

“Crystal.”

Smiling, Charlie shimmied down the mattress a little. He slipped his fingers into the waistband of Chuck’s shorts and tugged. “Hips up.” He’d had this done to him enough times that he knew the way it worked - was supposed to work. 

Chuck obliged and his hard cock sprung free. Tossing the shorts aside, Charlie ran his hands over Chuck’s knees and hairy thighs as he settled himself sort-of sitting and sort-of crouching between Chuck’s legs. He had thought he would be turned off, but warm skin was warm skin, and Chuck wasn’t exactly a bearskin rug. 

“So, Mister Scientist, what’s this experiment?”

“To see if I can suck cock without gagging.”

Chuck raised himself up on his elbows and stared at Charlie. They’d let the bedside light on so Charlie was able see the look of astonishment on Chuck’s face. “You don’t have to do that.”

“I want to try. If I don’t like it, believe me, you’ll know, I’m not shy and I complain a lot. Lie down. Tell me if I’m doing anything wrong, okay?”

“Like I’d know.”

Charlie burst out laughing. “We’re the blind leading the blind. Okay, then tell me if I hurt you.”

He lightly grasped Chuck’s cock in his hand and stroked it a few times. Just a cock. Pretty much the same as the one Charlie had, except a little wider around. He tentatively stuck his tongue out and touched it to the tip. A little salty, like sweat. He could deal with it. Remembering how a girl named Rina he had dated used to start him off, he tried to mimic her. Drawing back the foreskin, he licked along the slit, licked back and forth slowly and then around the head. 

Chuck let out a deep groan and bucked his hips up a little. Taking that as encouragement, Charlie took the head into his mouth and sucked lightly and then pulled off. He did the same thing a few times and then tried taking a little more in. He kept one hand clasped around the base, stroking up and down a little as he started to bob his head. He found a rhythm and sort of lost himself in it. He could hear Chuck’s steady whimpers, sighs and moans along with the occasional whisper of ‘yes’ or ‘Charlie.” It urged him on. 

After a while, Chuck’s hand landed on his head, scratching lightly at his scalp and playing in his hair. Chuck started to buck up into his mouth and then started pulling on Charlie’s hair and calling his name. “Charlie, stop.”

~*~

Charlie pulled off and looked up at Chuck sleepily. Chuck told him, “I’m gonna… make a mess.”

“You gonna come?”

“Yeah.” Chuck knew he was blushing to the roots of his hair. 

After a lazy shrug, Charlie smiled and said, “Okay.” Then he put Chuck’s cock back in his mouth and continued to suck on him. He couldn’t hold off, he felt everything tensing up and then he was done, spraying into Charlie’s mouth. 

Charlie held on for a moment and then pulled of, coughing. “Ok, that’s kinda… That’ll take some getting used to.” He wiped a hand across his face.

“Was it gross?”

Smacking his lips, Charlie wrinkled his nose. “Salty, sticky, cheesy, I’ve tasted worse.”

“You can use my toothbrush, if you want.”

“I didn’t want to offend.”

Chuck laughed and pointed to the bathroom. “Go ahead.” He wanted some kisses before he went to sleep, and he wasn’t really ready to taste his own spunk out of someone else’s mouth. 

Charlie came back and turned off the light before climbing in beside Chuck. He nudged Chuck’s hip and whispered, “Get comfortable.”

“Don’t you want to… uhm… fuck me?’

“Yeah, but it’s late and I have PT with the marines at 0500, and you’re sleepy. Another time, raincheck, okay? I’d just like to sleep.”

It was a very long time before Chuck fell asleep. Curled up around his back, one knee wedged between his, one hand resting on his hip, Charlie drifted off, snoring lightly. 

This was not at all what he had expected to happen here tonight, when he’d invited Charlie to stay. He had been biting the bullet so to speak. His whole life, Chuck had been taught that it was a _keri’s_ place to submit, to please a _panor_. The first time he had been with Charlie, it had been what he had always expected: fast, hard, a little painful. But he hadn’t minded it; it hadn’t been anything like what he had been dreading. He’d been willing to do it again, to see if it was what he remembered. He’d invited Charlie on the spur of the moment, to get it over with.

He had not expected Charlie to do what he’d done. Not at all. He was confused. His dad had told him to expect it to hurt, to do as he was told and give in if he was stupid enough to take a _panor_ to his bed.

Rather than a rampaging, demanding, hormonal wildman, Charlie had been sleepy and lazy and had made Chuck feel so damned good. Exhaustion finally overrode his confusion and he slept.


	16. Adapting

**April**  
Chuck waved to Commodore Mitchell as he walked through the infirmary the next day. The Commodore looked as sleepy as Chuck felt. He was sitting beside Commander Sheppard’s bed, which was a change, not too long ago their positions had been reversed. Quite a few people were still angry about the whole incident. Charlie was not having any luck finding the person responsible for providing drugs to Janelle Taylor. Chuck knew that it was making Charlie very angry and frustrated. 

“Doctor Fraiser?”

She looked up as Chuck shifted from foot to foot in her office doorway.

“Hi, Chuck. Everything okay?”

“Uhm, yeah, I guess so. Are you busy? Could I talk to you?”

“I’ve got a few minutes. Come in and sit down.” As he did, she pressed a button and closed the door. 

“You said I should come and talk to you if I needed to. I sort of need… I’m really confused.”

She set her tablet aside and folded her hands on her desk, giving him her full attention. “Confused?’

He nodded. “I always thought things were a certain way. My dad told me things about being a _keri_ , about what I should expect. Everything I’ve read and heard always supported what he taught me.”

“But something isn’t the way you thought it would be, is it?”

“No.”

She got up from her chair and came around the desk to sit in the chair beside him. “Tell me, you told me a while ago that you were only with your baby’s father once and that you’re not in a relationship. Is that no longer the case? Have you gotten involved with someone new?”

“The same someone. He didn’t know about the baby until about a week ago.”

“How did you manage that? With the way the gossip runs around here?”

He shrugged. “I’m good at hiding, so is he, we were avoiding each other.”

“And now?”

“We talked; we had dinner a few times, hung out. I was curious, I wanted to see if I could stand being with someone all the time. I asked him to stay, to see if sex would be the same without all the stupid KSG and PSG hormones flying around like the first time.”

“You took a risk, Chuck. The bond didn’t take the first time, but repeated exposure can lead to a slower bond developing. Surely you remember that from science classes?”

He nodded. “I know. But I had to see. I was getting used to having Charlie around and I didn’t want to keep seeing him if it was just going to be horrible later. I thought it would be better to break it off now.”

She patted his hand. “Chuck, was your father generally an unhappy man?”

“I guess. He worked a lot. He was kind to me, but I guess he was sad.”

“So, when you asked Charlie, that’s his name right? When you asked Charlie to stay, what happened? You can tell me, I’m a doctor, I don’t embarrass easily.”

“I thought he would want to have sex. Doctor Beckett said he would tell me when I had to stop. I thought we were going to, you know, have intercourse, but he... just had oral sex with me instead. And then he just wanted to go to sleep. He held me all night and slept and then got up and went to work.”

“Oral sex is still sex, Chuck,” Doctor Fraiser said, smiling at him. 

Frustrated because she wasn’t getting it, Chuck shook his head. “But… no, you don’t understand, he did it to me. He didn’t make me do it to him. He didn’t ask me to do anything. Then he kissed me and went to sleep.”

Pressing her lips together, the doctor looked annoyed for a few moments. “Chuck, I think maybe you have a slightly misinformed idea of what a bonded pairing, of what any sexual relationship is supposed to be. It’s supposed to be a partnership, a give and take. Yes, _panor_ are genetically predisposed to protective and dominant behavior, but that is not all the time and is certainly not all they are.”

“So, what Charlie did was normal?”

“From what you told me, it sounds to me like your Charlie wanted to share some pleasure with you.”

“Yeah? I don’t remember my other father. I don’t know what things were like when they were together.”

She sighed and patted his hand again. “Chuck, maybe you should talk with Doctor Heightmeyer. Not because I think you have a problem, but because she is very good at helping people to see things differently. She also understands _keri_ better than anyone on this base.”

“Maybe. I have a lot to think about. Thanks for listening to me, Doctor Fraiser.”

“Anytime, Chuck. You’re feeling healthy?”

“Yup. No aches or pains, except that my feet are sore by the end of the day.”

She smiled as he got up and went to the door. “Put them up when you can.”

He waved and left, thinking over what she’d said, and what she had not said about his dad.

~*~

  


“Aunt Jan, you have a minute?”

“For you, sweetie, anytime. Come give me sugar.” She opened her arms to him and he ran around the desk to throw his arms around her and kiss her cheeks. “Sit, talk to me, tell me about the latest conquest, blonde, brunette or redhead?”

He dropped into a chair and swung his legs over the arm. “Brunette.”

“That’s new; you do like the blondes, Charlie. I heard you were seeing one of the field medics.”

He smirked at her. “That’s over, Aunt Jan. You obviously haven’t been talking to Dad or Sam.”

“Not in the past few days, why?’

“I’m sorta done with girls. I think I’m homosexual. I have a… boyfriend. A _keri_ , actually.”

She sat back in her chair and stared at him. “Charlie.” She covered her mouth with her hand and shook her head. “Are you Chuck’s Charlie?”

“Uhm, yeah? You’ve been talking to Chuck?”

“He was in this morning.”

Concerned, Charlie swung his legs back over the arm of the chair and sat up. “Is he okay? He’s not sick?”

“Patient confidentiality, I couldn’t tell you that…”

“I’m the baby’s father. I could claim _panor_ rights, demand you tell me. I’m not going to; I just want to know that he’s okay.”

Janet nodded, “That right, you could. You’re entitled to know that the baby is fine. As of the last tests we ran, everything was exactly where it should be on the charts. Chuck is normal and healthy and follows orders to the letter.”

“Okay, good. He said that, but I feel better hearing it from you Aunt Jan.”

She tapped a finger on her chin thoughtfully. “You’re not what he expected.”

“We’re even; he’s not what I expected.”

“In what way?”

Charlie sighed. “He lacks breasts and he has a co… penis.”

“Is that a problem?’

“I thought it was, but it’s turning out to be less of one than I thought. We’ve got a lot in common, we like the same kind of movies, books and games, we feel the same way about of lot of stuff, and he’s so damned smart and he’s nicer than most of the girls I dated.”

“And he’s having your baby.”

“There’s that too. I’m trying not to freak out about that part.”

Janet stared at him across the desk. “Perhaps I should not share this, but to the best of my knowledge, Chuck hadn’t planned to keep the baby. We talked about what would be involved in finding adoptive parents for it.”

“If he still wants to do that, then I’ll have to let him. I can’t force the guy to raise a child he doesn’t want.”

She got up and walked around the desk and kissed his forehead. “Sometimes, you say or do things that make me really proud to know you, Charlie O’Neill.”

He smiled at her. 

“What if he wants to keep it?”

“I guess I do what needs to be done to make that happen.”

“Are you making a claim, Charlie? Think about your answer. Some rhetorical questions for you to consider; What if someone else were to take Chuck out on a date, how would you feel? What if someone else asked him to their bed? If he gives that baby away, how are you going to feel about that, and about him? If you were in Commodore Mitchell’s shoes right now, and that was Chuck suffering in that bed over there, how would you feel? Some food for thought, my beloved pest, now go away and think.”

“I love you Aunt Jan.”

“I love you too. Shoo.”

~*~

  


Charlie stood at the railing overlooking the desalinization pools, deep in thought. Aunt Jan, as usual, had asked the tough questions. The one that had given him the most trouble was the one about Mitchell and Sheppard. He’d only really known Chuck for a week, since he had spent the rest of the last seven months actively avoiding him. But already, he felt a wave of protectiveness come over him any time he thought about Chuck being in pain.

They had made a child together. It had not been planned or expected, but it was there. He had a responsibility to protect that child, to protect Chuck. The laws were fairly clear on the matter; he had only to speak up. But was that what Chuck wanted or needed? A lot of bonded couples didn’t know each other at all before they were tossed together. Look at Sheppard and Mitchell – from the rumors he’d heard theirs had been a contract bonding gone awry. 

He’d had six months to get used to the idea that he wasn’t exactly as heterosexual as he had once thought. In the past week, he’d gotten to see what it would be like having a _keri_ in his life, having Chuck in his life. The bond was tenuous, but it was there, he could feel it.

Charlie could walk away, let it break, let it fade. 

Be alone.

Or he could go down a road he had never planned to take.

~*~

  


Chuck opened the door, surprised to see Charlie, since it was the middle of the day. It was Saturday, Chuck was off duty, but Charlie had been working that case that was giving him fits. Chuck had not expected him to show up until dinner time. “Hi.”

“Uhm, hi.” Charlie had his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his jeans as he stood in the doorway. “Can we talk?” 

It was breakup time. Chuck had heard that tone before and he knew nerves when he saw them. He had been expecting this; he had known it was too good to be true, too much to expect that Charlie might actually want to have a real relationship with him. Charlie had been hetero his entire life, it was too big a change for him, tenuous bond or not. He sighed and stepped aside to let Charlie in. “Sure, come in?”

Charlie paced around the room. “Look, Chuck, I don’t want to force you to say or do anything, ever. I’m not like that. I know you talked to the doctor about finding another home for the baby. I get it. I understand if you want to do that when the time comes, I won’t give you any problems over it.”

Leaning against the wall for support, Chuck just stared when Charlie stopped a few steps away and looked at him. “I… I want to make a claim.”

Claim? Charlie wanted to bond with him, stay with him? 

“Charles Campbell, I swear to protect you and keep you, will you take me as your _panor’eten?_ ”

Would he? Charlie wanted him. Stunned, Chuck nodded slowly and recited the personal vow, “I swear to keep to you, Charles O’Neill, _keri_ to _panor_.”

“Okay. Okay, that’s good, right?” Charlie grasped Chuck’s arms and leaned in to kiss him. “Good?”

“I think we’re good. Did you mean what you said, about the baby, if I want to give it up for adoption?”

“Whatever you feel you need to do, Chuck. I’ll support whatever decision you make.”

He was confused again. His decision? It wasn’t supposed to be his decision, was it? Until Charlie had walked back into his life, it had been his decision to make alone. Charlie wasn’t taking that away from him?

“I don’t want to, but I don’t know how to take care of a baby, I never even held a baby. I have no idea what to do. I’m scared.”

Charlie smiled and hugged him, as closely as he could get with the baby bump in the way. “Well, do you know what your brand new _panor’eten_ comes with?”

“What?”

“A baby sister we can practice on.” 

“Huh? Oh, right, you mean Hope?” 

“Sure, let’s go file the paperwork with the registry office and then we’ll go tell my Dad and Sam about us and practice on… play with Hope for a while.”

~*~

  


Sub Commander Lorne grinned the entire time he filled out the official paperwork. Being the only officer on duty on a Saturday with the power to sign off on a bonding, Charlie and Chuck had ended up in his office. He wished them both well, slapped Charlie on the shoulder hard enough to make him stumble forward and handed them a hard copy of the filing.

Charlie rang the chime at his Dad’s quarters and smiled as Sam met them at the door, holding Hope in her arms. “There’s my favorite sister!” Charlie said, stealing the baby immediately. He bussed Sam’s cheek before stepping away. 

“Hello Chuck, come on in,” Sam greeted warmly as Charlie wandered off making odd noises at the baby. “The baby hog has seized control, the adults may now talk and move freely about the cabin. Come in, sit, would you like something to drink?”

“Water, please?” Chuck watched in amazement as Charlie held the baby under her arms and made her dance in the air as he sang a song at her. The baby was not howling in protest.

“I thought I heard you come in… hello Chuck.”

“Marshal.” Chuck started to stand as Jack O’Neill came into the room, his crutch making a low thud with each step he took.

“Sit.” The Marshal waved a hand loosely around the room, grabbed the fabric of his pants and shook it, tossed his chin at a white spot on the shoulder of his dark t-shirt and then tapped the center of his chest. “Home, sweatpants, baby spit up, Jack.”

O’Neill dropped heavily onto the sofa beside Chuck. “How’s things, Chuck?”

“Good, sir.” How did one make conversation with a retired Marshal?

“Be nice to my _keri_ Dad,” Charlie called from across the room.

“Your _keri?"_ the elder O’Neill repeated as he turned towards his son.

Chuck nodded and smiled as Jack winked at Chuck and folded his hands over his middle as he slumped down into the sofa cushions. “I can’t say I approve, Charlie. This is rather sudden.”

“Shut up, Dad, I’m keeping him. I like him. I have a paper signed by Sub Commander Lorne that says I can keep him.”

Sam walked around to the back of the couch, leaned over and kissed Chuck’s forehead and then ruffled his hair. “Congratulations. Welcome to the family.”

Family. Shit. He had a family now. Charlie came with a family. He had a _panor’eten_ and a father and a baby sister and a… Sam. Chuck blinked as he looked around the room and the enormity of what he had agreed to swept over him. Chuck had been alone for so long, he had forgotten what it was like being part of a family.

Charlie walked over with the baby and sat down beside Chuck. “Hope, this is Chuck. Be nice to Chuck. That means no spit up, missy. Chuck, hold up your arms.” He did and Charlie shifted the wriggling blanket-wrapped bundle over to him. “Always support her neck and head. That’s their weak spot; their heads are too heavy for them to keep up for the first few months.”

The baby stared up at him, her eyes were dark blue and she had long eyelashes. Her cheeks were pink and chubby and her nose was just a tiny little bump. “She’s so little.”

“She’s getting bigger fast, she eats like a piggie,” Jack made a few ‘oink’ sounds and leaned over to rub his face on the baby’s tummy.

“How do you know when to feed her?”

Everyone laughed. “Oh, believe me, she lets us know,” Sam said. “You start to know which noises mean what. A lot of it is guesswork too.”

They visited for a little while, chatting about Hope, and how Jack and Sam were adapting to having her around. It was just the sort of thing Chuck had needed to hear and see to tamp down some of the fears he had about his own baby. It was obvious that Sam was making a lot of stuff up as she went, looking things up in books, and relying on Jack’s past experience with Charlie to know what to do with Hope. 

Charlie was so comfortable with her, it amazed Chuck. He put her down on a blanket that he spread out on the rug. He stretched out beside her and played with her feet and hands, shook noisy toys over her face, and sang to her. He had a nice singing voice, Chuck had not known that. Then he made Chuck take her again. He was not as confident; he sat on the floor with his back against the sofa and held her as he would a piece of fragile glass. No one said anything or rushed to take her away from him, so he assumed he wasn’t doing anything too terribly wrong as he held her.

They had been there for quite a while when Charlie announced that it was time for them to leave. Chuck awkwardly passed the baby to Sam. He touched a fingertip to the tiny nose and lightly kissed the chubby hand that was holding tightly to his thumb and reluctantly pried himself loose. 

After an hour with the O’Neill family, and only two hours being an O’Neill, Chuck felt calmer and more centered than he had in months. The idea of the baby coming didn’t frighten the hell out of him quite so much.

Charlie clasped his hand as they walked towards Chuck’s quarters. “Feel better?”

“Yeah. Baby practice was a very good idea. You know what you’re doing.”

“See? Listen to your _panor’eten_ and you won’t get hurt. Hey, are you limping? Are you okay, does something hurt?”

“Just my feet.”

“Does that happen a lot?”

Chuck nodded. “Lately, yeah.”

When they got inside, Charlie steered him to the sofa and made him sit. He tugged off Chuck’s shoes. “Do you have any kind of lotion?”

“In the bathroom.” Chuck tilted his head back, intending to close his eyes for just a minute.

He woke and groaned loudly when Charlie dug his thumbs into his feet, massaging the lotion in. “Oh, keep doing that, please Charlie.”

“I can’t wait for you to make that noise in bed for me. Close your eyes. Lie back.”

It felt so good and relaxed him so much that he fell asleep again. Charlie shook his shoulder and waved a plate of food under his nose to wake him. “Real roasted chicken.”

Accepting the plate, Chuck stared at the food. “We have chickens?” 

“Apparently so.”

As he ate he looked around, Charlie had brought his stuff from his quarters. “You moved in?”

“You’ve got the bigger bed. We’ll find larger quarters later, if we need to.” Charlie glanced briefly at Chuck’s belly but then looked away.

“Charlie, you want to keep it, don’t you?”

“It’s your decision, Chuck. You don’t have to decide until it’s born.” That wasn’t the answer Chuck wanted, not really. Did Charlie want the baby?

~*~

  


When Charlie curled around him that night, thrust against Chuck’s hip and whispered, ‘”Can I?” Chuck had a few moments of panic, but agreed.

Charlie took him slowly, holding him carefully, and moving with him in a way that made Chuck sigh with contentment. He felt the all over tingle of the KSG in his body waking and igniting as he and Charlie joined. 

“I have to move a little more, Chuck, sorry.”

“It feels good, you’re not hurting me.”

Charlie kissed him near his ear. “Okay. Good. You tell me if you’re uncomfortable.”

“So not uncomfortable. Keep doing that.”

When Charlie finished, he shifted around so that he could take Chuck in hand and pleasure him. He took care of cleaning them both up and then pulled Chuck into his arms. Charlie kissed his neck and then snuggled against his back. “That was… thank you _keri_.”

There was warmth in Charlie’s voice when he whispered _keri_ , it was like an endearment when he said it in that tone. Chuck had been thinking that he might regret the rash decision to accept Charlie’s claim, but his first day of being Chuck Campbell-O’Neill had been a pretty good one. He settled into Charlie’s arms and went off to sleep with a smile on his face.

 

 **May**  
Evan’s stomach was in an uproar, again. He reached for the bottle of antacid and chugged down a few gulps before returning to the documents on the screen in front of him. He was seriously considering crying ‘uncle’ and calling Marshal O’Neill in to help. With both John and Cam out and Caldwell down to minimal time, the paper was getting harder to push around Command, even if was all of the electronic variety these days.

“You look like hell.”

Evan frowned as he looked up at Mitchell, leaning in the doorway. Think of the devil and he appears. “And you’re getting fat.”

Mitchell laughed at Lorne’s petulant tone. “Yeah, well. You aren’t playing well with others, from what I hear. The key is delegation, Lorne.”

“Sometimes it’s just easier to do it myself.”

Dragging a chair with him, Mitchell came around behind Lorne’s desk and sat down. “Not when you’re inhaling chalk to get through the day.”

“Davis is a turncoat.”

“Davis is a cleverly planted turncoat that happens to be concerned about you. Now, let’s see how much of this crap you can foist off on other people.”

Lorne desperately wanted to turn the mess over to Mitchell, but doctor’s orders were doctor’s orders, and Beckett would kill him for involving the Overseer. “I can’t, Cam. You’re not supposed to be up here.”

“I am not supposed to be stressed. Knowing that you’re up here working yourself sick is stressing me out. Carson said I could come and help for a few hours, maybe clear some of this off your desk before you end up in intensive care and there is no one running the city.”

There was a tap at the door. “Is this where the party is?” Telford glanced around at the office and grinned.

“Pull up a chair. You’re about to have your security clearances bumped up a few notches.” Cam gestured to the empty seat in front of the desk and Telford sat smoothly and crossed his legs. Cam tapped Lorne’s shoulder and pointed to the computer screen. “Access John’s inbox, we’ll start there.”

Reluctantly, Lorne let Cam bully him into transferring a lot of the burden over to Telford. It took five hours, but between the three of them, they eventually passed enough responsibility over to Telford to alleviate much of the immediate stress Lorne was under. Without Mitchell there to approve each step along the way, Lorne knew it would have never happened. Telford was too new, an unknown, and Lorne had not wanted to sign off on any shift of responsibilities to the strange newcomer.

As they were wrapping up for the day, McKay appeared at the door. “I heard you were up and about,” Rodney said as he spotted Mitchell.

“Just a temporary reprieve, I have to go home soon. Doctor McKay, this is Commander Telford,” Mitchell introduced the men.

“We’ve met,” Rodney said quickly. “Icarus project, what a mess that was.”

Telford quickly hid the grimace that crossed his face at the mention of the mostly failed project that had been his last Command. He gave McKay a tight-lipped smile. “Agreed, good to see you again, Doctor McKay. I’m going to go introduce myself to the department heads, see if I can’t get started on some of these issues we discussed. Good evening, gentlemen.”

“Commander,” Lorne said rising slightly out of his chair until Telford gestured him back down.

Cam smiled and waved. “See you later, Dave, thanks. Rodney, what brings you up here?”

Taking the seat Telford had vacated, McKay seemed off, which surprised Lorne, it wasn’t often the physicist was visibly nervous. “So, are you the law around here now, Mitchell? Does the buck stop at your desk?”

Leaning back and stretching, Mitchell eventually nodded. “We’re under martial law, so yeah, for now. Why?”

“Well, see, it’s like this. I want to get bonded.” Lorne noticed that McKay was actually wringing his hands nervously. Rodney McKay was rarely nervous, this was new.

“Okay,” Mitchell replied, drawing out the last syllable. “I didn’t realize you’d found another _keri_.”

“He hasn’t,” Lorne said, smirking at McKay as he figured out what this was about.

“I haven’t,” McKay said at the same time, and then sneered at Evan. Nonplussed, Evan gave him a cheesy, toothy grin in response. 

Mitchell twitched, which was a little amusing to Evan. He sat up straighter in his chair and peered at Rodney. “You can’t bond with anyone that isn’t a _keri_.”

Stubbornly setting his jaw, Rodney crossed his arms and said, “Then I want to get married.”

“The law doesn’t recognize marriage anymore Rodney, you know that.”

“It should. The law is stupid and now it’s outdated. I want to get married.”

Lorne hid his smirk behind his hand as Cam’s jaw worked silently. “You… you’re asking me to overturn sixty years of court rulings? We have only just appointed a committee to start drawing up plans for a civil government, Rodney.” Mitchell held up a hand to forestall whatever Rodney was opening his mouth to say. “I’m sorry; it’s too soon, far too soon. This whole fertility thing is certainly going to bring about changes, but it’s too soon for me to make any across the board rulings on such an important topic.”

Rodney sagged in the chair and looked disappointed.

“Listen, McKay, on a case by case basis, we might be able to work something out in the interim. If your… girl?” At Rodney’s nod, Mitchell continued, “… if your girl is carrying, it gives me some leeway to work with, an exception could be made.”

McKay shook his head negatively, which made Lorne breathe a sigh of relief; Cadman was one of the few Gate Team officers they had left to send out into the field, they couldn’t afford to lose her to maternity leave now. “She’s military.”

At that, Mitchell smiled. “Even better, I can grant military dispensations in some cases without getting into civil laws. Give me time.”

“I’m not letting this drop,” McKay said as he stood up.

Mitchell immediately countered with, “Do you want to be on the legal board? I’m sure Dick Wooley would love to work with you.”

That caused McKay to blanch slightly. “Woolsey? I’d rather work from the outside, thanks.” Both Lorne and Mitchell laughed, and eventually Rodney joined them. “I’m not going to fight with you about it, at least not today. Besides, John would kill me if I got you all upset. We’ll talk another time, eh?”

“Sure, Rodney. So, which of my people are you sleeping with? John’s gonna want to know.”

Rodney ignored Mitchell’s question and stomped out of the office.

“Captain Cadman,” Lorne supplied with another grin.

Mitchell looked completely surprised. “But, they hate each other; they fight like cats and dogs!”

“Cam, this is Rodney McKay we’re talking about, have you ever known him to do anything even remotely approaching normal?”

~*~

  


Charlie flattened back against the wall, cursing himself for following too closely. He was out of practice; his surveillance skills were going rusty living in Atlantis. This was why he needed to finish OTS and get back out in the field; paperwork was going to be the death of him if he didn’t.

Luckily, the ‘perp’ he was tailing didn’t seem to have much in the way of earth street smarts. He hadn’t made Charlie, yet. O’Neill didn’t even have a proper weapon. Until he qualified at OTS, he wouldn’t be able to carry a sidearm in the city. Civilians were not allowed to have weapons; even the civilian SFs only had batons. Charlie had a pair of Athosian fighting sticks tucked into the back of his belt; hopefully his merely adequate skills with the things would suffice in an emergency.

It had taken Charlie six days to track this guy down, threading together the barest of evidence. Until the scientist had come down here to restricted levels of the city, Charlie had still not been completely certain he had the right guy. But no one should be down here; these levels had restricted access for a reason. It pointed to guilt.

The man stopped in front of a door and looked around. Charlie watched from the alcove he was pressed tightly against. After the man ducked into the room, Charlie almost went after him immediately. But the intensive course of study he was undertaking had apparently sunk in. “Chain of command” and “backup” and “authorization” all echoed in his head, giving him pause. Keeping an eye on the room the doctor had gone into, Charlie walked few dozen yards away and tapped his radio.

“Security, this is Charlie O’Neill, come in.”

“Security, go ahead O’Neill.”

“I’ve followed a civilian scientist to a restricted area, building sixteen, sublevel three, quadrant two. Suspect wanted for questioning in the Rollins murder. Requesting backup.”

There were a few moments of silence as his request was processed. Charlie was glad he’d called the military SFs rather than the civilians; they’d have no idea what to do with his slightly unusual request.

“Understood, O’Neill. We’re routing a team to your location.”

Charlie cut him off before he could be ordered to hold his position. “Acknowledged, thanks, O’Neill out!”

He went to the door and glared at it, wondering how he was going to get the damned thing to open, when to his surprise, it slid open. Belatedly, he remembered the lectures about the Ancient Gene and the doctor mentioning that he had it. Apparently he had door clearance from the AI now.

The room was a lab. Not a very nice one, either. The scientist looked up in surprise as Charlie entered and leapt up from his stool, sending it clattering to the floor. He appeared to be the only one in the lab. “Working alone, Doctor Tunney?”

“You shouldn’t be here!” The nervous man said as he backed away from Charlie and the work table.

“Neither should you, this is a restricted area. But you knew that, you picked it purposely, didn’t you?”

Tunney’s eyes went wide and he circled around a stand of glass jars, tubing and burners. “Get out.”

“I don’t think so. I have a few questions,” Charlie said casually as he crossed his arms and watched the skittish man. “”Sweet setup you have here, no competition. I guess you can get whatever you ask for, since you’re the only game in town.”

“Not the only one,” Tunney said, and then quickly shut his mouth.

Great, there were other drug dealers in the city. However, this one was his concern at the moment. “Answer me this, because I haven’t figured it out yet. How’d you get the stuff to Janelle Taylor, Malcolm?”

Tunney shook his head in refusal.

Charlie sighed and reached behind him, pulling one of the Athosian sticks from his belt and slapping it menacingly in the palm of his hand. “And I did so mean for this to be a friendly talk.”

Malcolm Tunney screamed like a schoolgirl and spilled everything, confessing so quickly that Charlie almost laughed at the ease of the interrogation-slash-confession. By the time the marine SFs arrived, Tunney was huddled on the floor, sobbing and begging for mercy, naming names and promising to never touch the stuff again. Charlie hadn’t even had to hit him.

~*~

  


Sitting in the chair across from Lorne’s desk, Charlie leaned back and looked at the ceiling as Lorne typed notes into his computer. “He claims he only had the one teenager working for him, the SFs are looking for the kid now. He was breaking into Medical Stores to get some of the compounds he needed. Eventually, the inventory would have been checked and red flags would have gone up.”

Lorne nodded. “How’d she get the stuff that day?”

Charlie dug into his pocket and pulled out a clear plastic bag containing a piece of jewelry, passing it over the desk to Lorne. “The pendant is hollow; she had it on her when she was taken into custody. In the confusion, it wasn’t checked over thoroughly, and when they gave her clothes back, that was with them. It’s a high-grade mixture, used to be pretty common around the college campuses, called Geek Dust. Tunney memorized the formula back in the day and found everything he needed here, so went into production when he saw a market where he could turn a profit. I got a few names of buyers to check into, all civilians.”

“Thanks Charlie, good work. I didn’t even know where to start looking; this is so far outside my experience.”

Nodding, Charlie stood. “Glad to help, sir. I’m just glad there wasn’t a trail of bodies here like the kind I used to investigate back on Earth.”

“So am I, believe me. One murder was enough.”

“Will there be a trial, Sub Commander?”

“A tribunal, at the very least, we haven’t had cause to convene anything more than that as yet.” Lorne made a disgusted face. “I guess I need to be prepared for Richard Woolsey to come in here screaming about Tunney’s civil liberties.”

Charlie tossed his head at the glass wall, indicating Davis, sitting at Sheppard’s desk working. “You do know Paul Davis has a few years of JAG experience? I met him when I was working a case at Fort Bliss.”

“Thank you for the reminder, I had forgotten about that.”

“If there’s nothing else, sir, I have a test to prep for, and I need to get some time in on the range.”

Lorne gave him a wave. “Nope, nothing else. Thanks for the time you put in on this, O’Neill. I hear you’re doing well in OTS, keep up the good work.”

~*~

  


When Cam arrived at the infirmary, John was sitting up and eating. He was being watched over by Momma who had gained a reputation within the infirmary underground as The Food Smuggler. She was practically frisked at the doorway by security when she came in these days.

John was scooping up oatmeal, with peaches if Cam’s nose was working properly, which meant Momma had made it especially for him the way he liked it. 

Momma got up from the chair and kissed Cam’s cheek, then rubbed his belly. She was the only one other than John that he let get away with that particular move, it irritated him when anyone else did it, though he didn’t know why. “How are you, sweetie? Feeling okay?”

“I’m good, Momma. I’m ready to go back to work, actually.”

At that pronouncement, John dropped his spoon and crossed his arms, glaring at Cam. “No.”

Returning the glare, Cam dropped his fists to his hips. “No, _keri?_ ” He didn’t take this tack often, but he was bored and cranky and wanted to be doing something useful. John taking that ordering tone put his back right up. “You giving me orders?”

John didn’t even blink. And he wasn’t backing down. “Yes. And no. You are not going to work. If you’re bored, get Lorne to transfer something to a datapad for you to do, and you can sit right there where I can see you and monitor you as you do it,” Sheppard pointed to the chair beside his bed. 

The tension in the air was thick enough to cut with a knife. Momma cleared her throat, leaned over to kiss John’s temple quickly, patted Cam’s arm and retreated.

“Coward!” Cam called at her back. She pretended not to hear him.

Turning back to John, Cam asked, “Do we have a problem here?”

“Only if you insist on going to Command to work. You are on extended sick leave, Cameron. You might feel better, but you still get fatigued easily, I know you, you’ll overdo it, and you’ll be back down here with tubes and catheters stuck in you. I can’t go through that again. Please. Just, no. Not yet.”

Crap. He hated being wrong. “Fine,” he conceded, then sighed and maneuvered carefully into the chair beside the bed. “I miss throwing myself at the furniture,” he grumbled as he tried to find a comfortable position. The latest physical annoyance, which was perfectly normal according to Carson, was making it very uncomfortable to sit. CB had offered him a rubber donut, but he had refused, insisting he could tough it out. 

“How’s your blood pressure?” John asked, picking up his spoon and oatmeal again. He was apparently not going to gloat over the win which made Cam feel better.

“Better since you’re out of ICU. Numbers are all good. My ass hurts.”

One eyebrow went up as John licked his spoon. “That so? Too bad I’m all held together with sutures or I’d help you out with that,” John waved the spoon at his bandages.

Cam nodded. “Wounds bothering you?”

“Not too much. The one across my gut is pulling a little, getting itchy. I feel weird.”

He leaned in, John’s emotions had shifted in the last minute, and he seemed a little upset, off. “How so?”

Twiddling the spoon between his fingers, John gave a small shrug and looked away, a sure sign that he was unsettled. “Empty.”

“What would Heightmeyer say to that?”

John shrugged again. “Probably that it’s all in my head, I can’t possibly have felt anything yet, it was too soon. But I do, Cameron.” Now John looked at him and there was a little bit of pleading in his eyes. 

Reaching over, Cam took his hand and squeezed it. “I’m sure that you do. But look, the baby is fine, so far as CB and Fraiser can tell. You got… we got lucky, _keri_. Your body will adjust.”

“How’s Stackhouse?”

Cam shook his head sadly. “He took a bad turn yesterday; they had to put a breathing tube in. CB said it doesn’t look good, the infection at the wound site has taken hold and is being resistant to all drugs.”

At the news, John frowned and looked thoughtful. “Did CB try the moss stuff from Rizan, or is it Rifan?”

“I dunno. I’ll mention it. CB is worried about Jason, he’s considering sedatives.”

Biting his lip, John looked concerned. Cam had told him about Markham’s pregnancy. Sedatives were a serious step, drugs of any kind with a _keri_ pregnancy were dangerous. “Maybe he’ll pull through. Nate was a really sturdy guy before this.”

“Maybe he will,” Cam replied automatically, though he knew John could read his doubt through the link. 

“So how did it go when you snuck up to the office yesterday?” John drummed his fingers on the tabletop over the bed, trying to change the subject. Cam let him, it was a worrisome topic. 

“We dug Lorne out of the hole he was in, you were right, he was hoarding the duties, good call on that. We shifted a big chunk over to Telford. There’s a clerk down in Stores that comes highly recommended by Jack O’Neill, a Sergeant Harriman. We pulled him in to assist Telford; Dave also asked to keep Meara on his staff.”

“Good. What’s Charlie O’Neill doing? Is he far enough through OTS to test out yet? Lorne could use him.” John leaned his head back and Cam could see he was getting tired and fighting it. 

Cam squeezed John’s hand and let go. “Not too much longer, according to Evan. As soon as he’s done, Lorne’s moving him over to security to work with Scott. Hey John, before you nod off, remember how we talked a while back about offering Ronon a commission?”

“You didn’t seem too keen on it, so I dropped it,” John replied quietly, his voice fading. 

“I changed my mind. Do you think he would take it, and who should talk to him about it?”

John nodded slightly. “Yeah. You. He respects you.”

Cam stood, stretching carefully before leaning over to ruffle John’s hair. “Sleep for a while. I’ll be back at lunchtime.”

“’kay,” John mumbled and gave in to the fatigue.

~*~

  
When Teyla opened the door, she looked a little ragged around the edges, which was very unlike her. Within the chamber Torra was running around the wrecked room very noisily screeching and waving her arms. “You look like you need a break.”

She simply nodded and moved aside to let him pass. 

Cam stepped into the room and into Torra’s path. “Hey! I think someone needs to go see Grandma!”

That stopped the child mid-screech; she stumbled to a halt and looked up at Cam. “Ga’ma?”

“Yup, but only if you’re quiet.”

“I be quiet.” Torra ran over and hugged Cam’s knees. 

Smiling as he stroked the girl’s curls, Cam looked over at Teyla, who was giving him a weary and grateful look. 

“Ronon went with the hunters on the mainland yesterday, he will be gone until later today.” 

“If you see him before me, tell him to find me, I need to talk to him about something. I’ll take Torra to Momma and give you a little break. C’mon Torra-bug, go get your jammies and Cuddlepup, I think maybe a sleepover is in order.”

As Torra ran to her bed to collect the things, Teyla walked over and pulled Cam’s forehead down to touch with hers. “Ancestors bless you, Cameron.”

“What are friends for? Everyone needs a break now and then, even a supermom like you,” Cam smiled and lightly kissed her cheek as she pulled away. 

Teyla packed Torra’s things in a tiny pink Hi Pussycat backpack, which she slipped over the girl’s arms. Cam hid his smile at the sight; someone must have found the pack and gifted it to Torra. It was only large enough to fit her pajamas a small picture book and change of clothes. Torra held a floppy, well-worn stuffed dog in her arms. 

“Kisses for Mama?” Teyla knelt down and held her arms open, giving the toddler a bunch of kisses and a tight hug. “Remember to respect Grandma Wendy. Do as she bids you, Torra.”

Torra nodded as she looked up at Cam and lifted her arms expectantly. “Go Ga’ma?”

He held a hand out to her. “You’ll have to walk, I can’t carry you, sweetheart, is that okay?’

“I’m big, I can walk.” He had no doubt that she could. 

They both waved to Teyla as they left. As Cam watched her turn away, he realized that almost everyone in his life was exhausted these days. Many of the people in his life were also pregnant these days. How bizarre life had become in such a short time.

~*~

  
“Well, what have we here?” Momma exclaimed as Cam and Torra entered the kitchen. It was almost time for Wendy to go off duty, so Cam figured Torra wouldn’t be too much in the way.

“Little Miss Hyperactive was driving Supermom a bit batty. Ever seen Teyla on her last nerve? It isn’t pretty. I thought it best to save the child.”

Momma had scooped up Torra and was snuggling her close. “I see you have your backpack and Cuddlepup, do I get to keep you for a while?”

Torra nodded with excitement. 

“If you don’t mind?” Cam replied. “I sort of volunteered you.”

Momma waved a hand and laughed. “Mind? Oh, I just love having this little one all to myself.”

“Ga’ma tell me doggy stories?” For a child that had never seen a dog in her life, Torra was fascinated by them. John had brought Cuddlepup back with him on his last trip to Earth, and it had proven to be Torra’s favorite toy as she got old enough to show a preference for particular toys; she would not sleep without it.

“Lots and lots.”

“Unca Cam, do doggy noises.”

Obediently, Cam snarled and barked a few times, until a sergeant stuck his head into the kitchen to investigate the noise. Cam blushed and pointed to the child. The sergeant rolled his eyes and backed out of the doorway.

As Wendy settled Torra on a high stool and handed her a near-gingerbread cookie to gnaw on, Cam asked, “Got any pasta I can smuggle up to John?”

She nodded and spooned up a small serving of macaroni and cheese, covering the bowl and putting it on a tray, along with a covered mug full of fruit juice. “I don’t think he’ll finish more than that.”

“Agreed. Even on a good day.” 

They chatted and gossiped and entertained Torra for a little while as Momma finished cleaning up the kitchen to her satisfaction after the rest of the staff left. The dinner staff would be in to take over in a few hours. 

“You are such a good girl,” Momma said as she lifted Torra into her arms. “Would you like to play at the sandbox and the swing for a little while?”

Torra nodded eagerly then pouted, “I don’t have my tools.”

Wendy smiled and declared, “We can fix that.” She picked up a big spoon and a tin cup. 

“Grandmas can fix anything,” Cam said sagely. 

He walked with them to the small park and gave Torra a few pushes on the swing before heading back to the infirmary to bring John his lunch. He gave his mom a peck on the cheek and thanked her for taking Torra. She again waved him off, claiming to be delighted to have the child. 

Beckett headed him off at the door and inspected the contraband tray. “I’ll be happy if you get half of that into him.”

“I’ll do my best. How’s Stackhouse, any change?”

“Holding steady. Our Jonas has been a godsend; he’s been sitting with Jason and keeping him calm for hours at a time. I don’t know how the poor lad would be doing otherwise.”

Cam glanced over and saw Quinn sitting beside Jason, playing chess. “Good. The waiting is the hardest part. Having someone there makes it bearable.”

Nodding in agreement, Beckett turned and excused himself as he was called away. Cam waved to Markham-Stackhouse and Quinn as he walked past. As usual, John was sleeping, so Cam set the tray on the table and pushed it over the bed. The noise roused his _keri_ , and John blinked up at him sleepily. “Lunchtime already?”

“Yup.”

“Whassa?” John was so adorably dopey, and so much like his normal self when he woke that Cam couldn’t resist grabbing his cheeks and kissing him with relief. John sighed with contentment as Cam pulled away.

“Macaroni and cheese, and some kind of fruit juice of the day, with ice.”

John smiled and smacked his lips as he reached for the cup and took a big gulp. “What’d you do all morning?”

“Tried to find Ronon and failed because he’s on the mainland. Then I went to ask Teyla to give him a message, and ended up stealing Torra and dumping her on Momma.”

“Teyla looked like death warmed over?”

Cam smirked. “How’d you guess?”

“She had a horrible first three months carrying Torra. She used to scare the crap out of me, I thought she was dying.”

Blinking at John, Cam tried to process this new information. “Teyla’s carrying?”

His _keri_ shrugged and scooped up some pasta. “No one said anything to me, but I suspect she is. Are you surprised? There _was_ something in the water, after all.”

“Could I bug you for a minute?” Lorne asked, poking his head into the curtained off ‘room.’

“Unlike someone else who looks so healthy he’s practically glowing.” John pointed his fork in Lorne’s direction. 

“Good genes, healthy living and a nagging _keri_.” Lorne flashed a smug smile.

“What’s up, pest?” John asked. 

“What’s the syntax to get into the air conditioning system? Radek is having issues.” 

John swallowed the mouthful of food before replying, “Access air filtration, grant user access, Zelenka. That should work, if she’s in a good mood.”

“And if she’s not?”

“Zelenka gets to sweat until I’m allowed in the chair again,” John replied and Lorne snorted. 

“You aren’t by any chance thinking of getting into the chair, are you Sub Commander?” Cam asked in a voice that dripped with censure.

Shuffling his feet and looking away, Lorne replied, “Well, just for a few minutes.”

“Absolutely not. Ask, and ask very nicely, if Marshal O’Neill wouldn’t mind doing it. Remind him that John is on the mend and will be able to resume his chair duties soon,” Mitchell ordered.

Blowing out a huff of impatience, Lorne replied, “I could ignore you, since you’re off duty.”

Crossing his arms, Cam countered with, “And I could tell your _keri_ what you’re planning to do. He doesn't like the chair any better than I do.”

Lorne blanched and hissed between his teeth, “You wouldn’t!”

“Try me.”

Lorne spun on his heel and flounced out and John began to laugh. “Cameron, you’re mean.”

“I’m off duty, but that doesn’t mean I don’t expect to be obeyed. I’ll use whatever means necessary to achieve my desired results.”

 

 **May**  
The lights were out when John opened his eyes. He felt strangely detached; he couldn’t sense the usual hum of the city beneath him. That must have been what woke him. Patting his hand on the mattress, he felt beside him, but Cameron was not there, his side of the bed was cold. He couldn’t sense his _panor’eten_ through the bond. “Cameron?” he called quietly and his voice echoed back to him. 

He pushed the blankets aside and slid off the mattress. The floor was like ice under his bare feet. This wasn’t right, the floors of Atlantis had been warm for years, since the AI had been awakened and people had come to live here again. It sort of felt like the first day, the day John had followed Weir and Sumner through the Gate, before everything had changed. Before the city had awakened.

“Lights,” John hissed when the city did not respond to his mental nudge. “Lights!” he barked when there was no change. He fumbled through the complete darkness to the closet where he knew a P-90 hung on a hook just inside the door. He grabbed it and toggled the light on, shining it around the room. 

It flickered across something shiny on the floor. He knelt and touched the tips of his fingers, they came away wet and red in the shine of the light. Blood. John’s breath froze in his throat as he saw that the shining trail led from the bed to the door. He followed it out into the corridor, refusing to consider the source. “Cameron?” his voice trembled as he called out to his _panor’eten._ “Why can’t I feel you, _panor?_ ” The constant awareness of Cameron in his mind was missing. He felt empty and alone and very frightened. “CAMERON!”

His voice echoed off the corridors back at him. He followed the trail to the transporter, the door was standing open. There was a pool of blood on the floor. A bloody handprint showed him that the last destination attempted was the Tower. He pressed the indicator. Nothing happened, of course nothing happened; there wasn’t any power. He ran down the corridor to the stairwell. By the time he reached the junction that would lead to the bridge to the Tower, he was out of breath. 

John had to force the double doors open when he got to the Control Room. There was a body up against the doors. He recognized one of the marines that usually stood guard duty in the Gate Room, his throat slashed open. Skirting the body, John shined his light around the room. He nearly dropped the weapon when he saw more bodies. Amelia Banks was lying broken and bloody across her work station. Near the door to Command, he found Telford’s lifeless body, his neck cocked at an impossible angle.

This couldn’t be real. This couldn’t be happening. How could this be happening? John pinched himself, it hurt. Did that make it real? He couldn’t remember. Why couldn’t he sense Cameron? “CAMERON!” he shouted. This time there was no echo. The rooms swallowed up his voice.

Marks and Sils were dead on the floor in Mitchell’s office. The men looked as if something had ripped them open, an animal of some kind. John backed out of the office. At the top of the stairs, he nearly tripped over Cadman, facedown in a pool of blood, the back of her head smashed and bloody. He only recognized her by her hair. Beside her, Davis looked as if he had been shredded by a giant clawed hand. 

The Gate Room looked like a battlefield. John’s heart was racing in his chest as he spotted the corpses of people he had known and worked with for years. He bit back a sob at the sight of Ronon and Teyla’s mutilated bodies. He had to find Cameron. 

He ran through the corridors, each body he came across adding to his mounting terror. He heard no sound but the echo of his own footfalls, his bare feet slapping on the tile floor. Again, he took the stairs to get to the infirmary. Inside the doors, he found Carson, his throat torn out. The infirmary was worse than the Gate Room, everywhere he looked, he saw his friends. Jason Markham-Stackhouse, on a gurney beside his _panor’eten_ , was gutted as if something had been eating at him from the inside. Beneath a bed, as if she had attempted to hide there, he saw the bloody form of Kate Heightmeyer.

More of the same throughout the infirmary, every pregnant _keri_ and _panor_ in the city was here, torn open.

“Cameron?” John walked slowly, stepping over bodies and body parts; he saw another body at the back of the infirmary. His light flashed across sandy brown hair and blue eyes open and staring sightlessly up at the ceiling. “Cameron?” 

He felt every bit of hope desert him as he dropped to his knees beside his _panor’eten._ The city was dead around him. His friends, his family were dead. Something had killed them. Something had torn them open, ripped them apart. 

John heard a noise. He lifted his P-90 and turned the light towards the corner. The thing stared at him, beady dark eyes glistening in the narrow beam, blood dripping from double rows of teeth and razor sharp claws. 

He raised the weapon, squeezed the trigger, as he had been well-trained to do by the military when facing a threat. The trigger simply clicked, nothing happened. He heard a snarl, then another. And when he looked, he was surrounded, more of the creatures, their sharp teeth gnashing, advancing on him. 

“Cameron,” John whispered. His _panor’eten_ his last thought before they were upon him.

~*~

  
Cam sat bolt upright when John let out a blood curdling scream. He grasped him by the shoulders and shook his sleeping _keri_ “John, wake up. C’mon, buddy, you’re having a bad one. Wake up.” John hadn’t had a nightmare like this in well over a year. Cam chalked it up to the stress of the babies and his healing injuries. He’d only been home two nights and this was the fifth nightmare. “John.”

Just as Cam was debating the wisdom of slapping him, John’s eyes opened and he stared up at Cam. Then he wrapped his arms around Cam’s neck and for only the second time since Cam had known him, burst into tears. “Oh, fuck, John. Hey, hey,” Cam hugged him and rolled onto his side, taking John with him. It wasn’t easy holding him, the bump of the baby was keeping them apart. 

He smoothed John’s hair and stroked his back as best he could, letting him cry it out. He’d been bottling everything up for weeks, Heightmeyer had warned Cam a crash was coming; John was being too cool, too calm, holding it together too well. 

“Are you awake?” Cam asked when John had fallen mostly silent, with an occasional snort or hiccup. 

John was very quiet but finally admitted quietly, “Yeah. I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“Waking you, falling apart, being a baby.”

Cam pulled John’s face up and kissed his forehead. “I woulda been up any time now to pee anyway. And I’m relieved; I’ve been waiting for you to break down for weeks.”

“You have?” John sniffled.

Ruffling his _keri’s_ hair, Cam let him go to roll awkwardly to the edge of the bed. “Yeah. You’ve been holding everything in, trying to be strong and stoic. Something hadda give eventually. Since you’re awake, can you help me up?”

John let out a snort and slid off the bed, padding around to Cam’s side to grab his arms and pull him upright. He hugged him and kissed Cam’s lips softly. “Thanks. And I am sorry anyway.”

They’d switched sides of the bed months ago, so that Cam could be closer to the bathroom, but John woke anyway when Cam got up, which he did frequently. After he was done and waddled back to the bedroom, he saw that John was leaning against the glass balcony door, staring out at the ocean. He went over and reached a hand out to caress John’s cheek. 

“Okay?’

“Worried. But I’ll be fine.”

“Want to tell me about the nightmare?”

John grasped his hand and tugged him in for a kiss before leading Cam back to the bed. Only when they were settled did John start to talk. “The city was dead, completely cold. And everyone in it had been killed. There were monsters loose. I found the bodies. I found your body. It was so real, I thought it was real.”

Having nothing to say that wouldn’t sound trite; Cam just kissed the top of John’s head. He sent soothing feelings through the link at him, sharing feelings deliberately through the bond was a new skill they had been working on with coaching from Heightmeyer.

John rolled over and pressed his face against Cam’s arm. Soon, his pulse slowed and he was snoring quietly. Idly stroking his fingers through John’s hair, Cam drifted off not long after his _keri_.


	17. Findings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning: This chapter contains the death of canon characters.

**May**  
“Nate, are you awake?”

Stackhouse slowly opened his eyes and turned his head to blink blearily at the figure leaning over the rail of his bed. “Jase?” he rasped.

“You talked! Oh my God, you spoke!” Jason caressed his cheek and then turned away to shout, “Doctor Beckett! Doctor Fraiser!”

Wincing at the noise, Nate whispered, “Call button.”

“Oh right.” Jason grabbed the device and pressed it frantically, then dropped it and leaned over to rain kisses on Nate’s face. “You’re finally awake. I was so worried.”

His hand felt very heavy as he raised it to cup the back of Jason’s neck and squeezed gently and then stroked down his neck as he let the hand drop back to the mattress. “How long?”

“You’ve been out for almost six weeks.”

Further conversation was interrupted by the arrival of Doctor Beckett along with three nurses. It got very noisy in the cubicle as they all went to work checking Nate’s vital signs. Jason refused to budge when they tried to move him, clinging tightly to Nate’s hand. 

Nate looked up at his very relieved _keri_ and asked, “What happened? How’d I get here?”

“You chased Janelle Taylor through the Gate and she shot you,” Doctor Beckett replied. “Exhibiting more bravado than sense as you were not wearing a TAC vest at the time.”

Glancing down at his middle, Nate frowned. He could feel the soreness of healing wounds, bullet wounds, now that he knew what the cause was. He’d been shot twice before and knew the feeling. “The baby?” His _keri_ clutched his hand and shook his head sadly. 

Beckett patted his arm sympathetically. “There was too much damage; the bairn was lost before we were able to get to you. I’m sorry, Nate.” 

He wasn’t quite sure how he felt about that. He hadn’t really wanted to carry, and had not been entirely certain of the whole children issue, but the baby had been a part of him and Jason. He certainly never wished for it to die. Looking up at Jason, he saw tears shimmering in his _keri’s_ eyes. 

“Oh, Jase, don’t.” He raised his hand and touched Jason’s cheek with his knuckles. 

He was finding it hard to keep his eyes open, even with the poking and prodding Beckett was doing. He reached for Jason’s hand and held it as he settled back against the pillows and closed his eyes for just a minute.

~*~

  


“What’s up, Rodney?” Laura asked as she came into the chamber he had directed her to via radio.

“I need another pair of hands that I can trust, someone that won’t screw things up.”

She smiled and sidled over to him, bending down to kiss his cheek. “Awwww, you trust me? I’m touched.”

He shrugged. “Zelenka was busy.” He smirked as she swatted him.

She sat on the floor beside him and looked around the room, and then at the machinery he was working on. “I’ve never been down here before, what is this room?”

“Star Drive Chamber.”

“I thought we didn’t have the parts to repair it?”

Rodney tugged at a burned out crystal and passed it to her. “We don’t, really. But AG-5 came back from an abandoned Ancient outpost with a few crates of parts, and since we couldn’t find any other use for them, and they fit the schematics for the drive, we figured we’d store them here for the time being. We can always pull them later if we need them elsewhere.”

“So you’re trying to fix as much of this puppy as you can?”

He patted her knee and flashed a smile. “Exactly. I’m coming at it sideways, casually. If you could barcode these while I switch them, it would be a big help. There’s a printer there.” 

Laura picked up the bar code printer and flipped it over to check the paper supply. “I thought we were rationing the paper?”

“Yeah, we still are for now. But this is a pretty important batch of parts to be able to lay hands on again if we need them, so we’re tagging them.”

“Do you want me to tag the dead part?”

He handed her another crystal. “Just the first one that is different, we’ll note the inventory on the system, only sticker one of them to save paper. We’ll keep them together. If we can find one, we’ll find the others.”

Working together, they quickly fell into a rhythm of replacing the parts, labeling them and updating the inventory. When the last of the parts was replaced, Rodney sat up and smiled. “All done.”

“How many more parts are irreparably damaged?”

He pointed to a panel, “The main energy distribution panel is burned out. So are the transfer couplings for the engines and the shields. Without those, this bird won’t fly. Well, she might fly, but she’ll crash very soon afterwards.”

Tapping her chin, Laura wondered aloud, “There’s no place we could look for parts?”

As he packed up his toolkit, McKay shrugged and replied, “We won’t be able to find out until Sheppard can get back in the chair and talk to the AI. And that is only if Mitchell will let him stay in the chair long enough to actually get down to that portion of the list of things to chat with the electronic bitch about. Maybe someday he can find another source for what we need, there has to be a manufacturing plant or the plans for one somewhere.”

“Jealous, Rodney?” Laura scratched his head. He leaned into the caress.

“Maybe a little. I’m _panor_ \- why don’t I have the gene? What’s wrong with me? Almost everyone else that’s _keri_ or _panor_ has it.” His lower lip jutted out and he pouted until Laura climbed across his lap and kissed him. 

“Have you ever tried using the chair?” she asked as the kissing got a bit hot and heavy and she had to get up before they ended up rolling around naked on the floor.

He shook his head. “The Antarctica chair wouldn’t work for me; I assumed this one wouldn’t either.”

“And you call yourself a scientist!” She grabbed his hand and tugged until he got up and followed her from the room.

~*~

  


Rodney went along with Laura because he was mildly interested in checking this out, and because sometimes letting her have her way was fair and made her happy. When they reached the Chair Room, she pushed and prodded at him until he sat on the chair at the center.

“Well?”

“I got nothing. The seat is hard. How do Sheppard and Lorne do this for hours without getting sore asses?”

“Sit back Rodney, concentrate.” Laura went to the monitoring panel and glanced over the controls. 

Sighing heavily, Rodney leaned back. To his surprise, the chair glowed dully beneath him and slid into a reclining position. He felt a very slight electrical charge twine over and around him. “Hey!”

“Something is happening, it looks like you’re being scanned,” Laura called.

“I feel it.”

“What does it feel like?”

He smiled at her, “Tingly, it tickles.”

“I’ve got a progress bar of some kind. Let me know if anything changes for you.” 

Rodney felt a burst of pain behind his eyes, but before he could tell Laura, he heard a voice in his head. ***Pilot interface initialization error***

“What? Laura I just heard ‘pilot interface error’ in my head.”

***Pilot syntax error***

Remembering what a pain in the ass Sheppard and Lorne said dealing with the AI was, and how picky it was about the syntax, Rodney remained silent, thinking of the best way to approach this. Somehow, he had some kind of link to the AI at the moment, despite his lack of the gene. The initialization error probably stemmed from that. No one else had gotten this far in the past, the AI usually refused to communicate at all with anyone that was not Sheppard, Lorne, O’Neill or Beckett.

“Atlantis, analyze source of initialization error,” Rodney said.

“You’re in, Rodney? That’s awesome!” Laura ran over and grasped his arm. 

He shook his head. “Having some trouble, but the AI is talking to me a little.”

***Genetic anomalies detected, unable to precede. Scan for repairable damages?***

“Laura, it wants to do a scan for repairable damages.”

She squeezed his arm. “I don’t know Rodney…”

“Atlantis, begin scan.”

“You asshole!” Laura smacked his shoulder. “Medical, this is Cadman; I have a possible situation in the Chair Room.”

Beckett’s voice was calm as he came onto the radio. “Laura, what is going on?”

“Dumbass Rodney just let the AI start a scan for repairable damages, I think it’s scanning him, he’s all lit up like a Christmas tree.”

The doctor sighed heavily and began to swear under his breath. “I’m on my way.”

“I’m not a dumbass. I’m a genius,” Rodney protested.

She punched his shoulder this time. “Book smart and failing life. With all the mucking about the AI has done, why on Earth would you agree to this?”

“We’re not on Earth.” He probably shouldn’t have said that. He might not have gotten hit a third time if he had been less snotty.

“Beckett is coming, for heaven’s sake Rodney, don’t agree to anything else.”

When the Doctor arrived, he very surprisingly had Sheppard in tow. Sheppard was dressed in a sweatshirt, loose running pants and sneakers. The attire looked out of place, McKay was used to seeing his friend in uniform. “What are you doing out of bed?” McKay asked.

“I’m here to help. CB, he can’t be too far under if he’s still completely aware of what’s going on out here,” Sheppard drawled as he crossed his arms. “What did you do to my city, McKay?”

“It isn’t your city!”

“Fine, what did you do to my electronic girlfriend?”

Beside him, Cadman snorted in amusement. “Does Commodore Mitchell know you’re cheating?”

“Lads, please. Rodney, what is the AI doing now?”

Good question. “Atlantis, status of scan?”

***Repairs initiated, sequencing at 41%***

Biting his lip, Rodney gave a groan. “Uh-oh. Does Repairs initiated, sequencing at 41% mean what I think it means?”

Sheppard whacked his foot. “Of all the dumbass… what else did you agree to, Rodney? Tell me exactly what you said.”

He didn’t agree, did he? “I said ‘Atlantis begin scan.’ Then a message came up that said ‘initialize’ – I thought it meant initialize the scan, so I said yes.”

“Shit,” Beckett and Sheppard said simultaneously.

“I gave it permission, didn’t I?”

“Afraid so. She scans pretty quickly, especially when the subject is in direct contact with a probe or interface, like say for instance, the damned chair!” Sheppard replied testily as he wiped a hand over his face. “Don’t you read the friggin’ reports Lorne and I write?”

“Why aren’t you in bed?” Rodney asked again as he noticed how weary his friend was. 

“I still need him to interpret; I don’t understand the bloody machine. Are you in any pain, Rodney?”

“I have a headache.”

Rodney felt another, stronger wave of electrical pin pricks all over his body. “There’s something happen…” was all he was able to spit out before the pain overwhelmed him. Laura was leaning over him, a panicked look on her face as he bucked up from the chair, writhing with the pain. He could see her lips moving, but all he could hear was a loud rushing sound, like waves crashing on the beach. 

When the second jolt hit him, he screamed until everything suddenly stopped and he felt and knew nothing.

~*~

  


“I got a message you’ve been looking for me?” Ronon was leaning in the doorway of Cam’s office. Mitchell had been allotted one hour a day to work in his office and two hours from home by Beckett.

Smiling Cam waved him in and leaned back in his chair to relieve some of the pressure on his back. “For about two weeks, actually, you are very hard to track down.”

“A hard-learned skill. What’s up?”

Opening his desk drawer, Cam withdrew a box, dropped it atop a tablet and slid both across the desk to Ronon. “That is the offer of a commission in the Atlantis military with the rank of captain, if you would like to accept it.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Ronon reached for the box and opened it, staring intently at the pair of silver bars within. 

“We’ve considered your experience in the Satedan military as well as the four years of service you’ve put in for Atlantis. The entire senior staff feels you deserve this, Ronon, and that the offer is long overdue.”

Cam wasn’t certain of how the big guy was taking this. His expression was, as usual, completely inscrutable. Letting him take his time, Cam remained silent, watching him touch the bars and open and close the box.

“I don’t know all the rules.”

“Lorne will give you a crash course. And we’re all on radios if you need to verify anything. You’ve led Gate teams; we trust your instincts and experience.”

Grinning suddenly, Ronon closed the box and pressed his thumb to the form on the tablet. “I’m in.”

Extending his hand, Cam said, “Welcome. We’ll have an official ceremony for you next week. I didn’t want to spring this on you without checking first.”

“’preciate that. I don’t like surprises.”

“No, I can understand how you wouldn’t. You don’t mind sharing the spotlight, do you?”

Shaking his dreadlocks, Ronon said, “Nah. Who am I sharing with?”

“Charlie O’Neill.”

“He’s cool. Anything else I need to do?”

Chuckling, Cam replied, “Head down to Stores, see if they can find a uniform that will fit you, they might have to do the pants up special.”

“Will do. How’s Sheppard doing?”

“Good. Very good. He’s out and about today, helping Beckett with something.”

~*~

  


John wasn’t able to keep up with the medical team as they rushed away with Rodney. He had fallen behind; the surgical incision across his abdomen was still tender and sore if he moved the wrong way. He had to walk, despite his wish to run.

His friend had been so pale and still, so very unlike Rodney. And John’s last words to him had been said in anger and annoyance. If anything happened, he would never forgive himself for that.

CB had McKay under the Ancient scanner by the time John caught up with them in the infirmary. He went to stand beside Laura, who was watching Beckett with wide eyes as he worked on Rodney.

“Stupid dumbass. I’m never going to let him forget this,” she whispered. 

When Beckett came over to them, he was frowning. “He’s in a coma, though I’m unsure why. I’ve compared a scan we took of his brain a few years ago to one taken just now and there are marked differences, but not enough to explain the unconscious state.”

“So what can you do for him?”

“We’re putting him on a feeding tube and hydration. There’s nothing else we can do for him at the moment except keep him comfortable.”

John looked over at the bed as the nurses arranged Rodney on it. “When will he wake up?”

“I don’t know, John. I honestly don’t know if he will. There’s no bleeding in his brain, I don’t know why the brain activity level is so low.”

“What are you saying? Is he brain dead?” Cadman demanded. 

Shaking his head, CB replied, “I wouldn’t go that far, there is some activity. It’s really up to Rodney to come out of this.”

“He could stay like this?” John asked as Cadman turned and buried her face against his chest. He held her close and let her cling; he felt like doing the same thing and probably would when he got home to Cam.

“Aye, I’m afraid he could. We’ll keep a close watch on him,” Beckett said. John knew CB was at a loss as to what to do, he could see it in his friend’s eyes. Rodney was in big trouble.

~*~

  
Leaving their quarters early to give Chuck time to stop and rest if he needed to, Charlie clasped his _keri’s_ hand tightly and tried to loosen his new dress uniform tie. Apparently, the material for the uniform blacks had been traded for here in Pegasus and it was not hard to replace them if they were worn out.

They were early and there was plenty of time to find Chuck a seat. Chuck tapped his shoulder and tossed his head and Charlie saw that Sam and his dad were already there, Hope propped quietly on Sam’s lap. They went over, said their hellos and Chuck took the seat beside Jack. He had lost all of his nervousness around the family in the past few weeks.

Charlie crouched down in front of his sister and tickled her chin. Then he leaned in and blew a raspberry on her cheek, which made her squeal with delight and kick her feet. 

“Quit slobbering on my kid!” Sam said jokingly and swatted Charlie’s arm. “We’re proud of you Charlie.”

“Thanks Sam.” He shook his dad’s hand and returned the broad smile. The Marshal had always been mildly disappointed that Charlie had not chosen the military as a career, but he had understood that Charlie’s skill set had been better suited to police work. Now, here, he could do both. 

There was a tap on his shoulder and he turned and was embraced quickly and released. “Well done, Charlie.”

“Thanks Aunt Jan.” He leaned down and whispered, “Would you sit next to Chuck? He’s really nervous about being a bit on display here.”

Patting his cheek, Aunt Jan nodded and went to claim the chair beside Chuck. Charlie followed and stood in front of Chuck for a few moments before crouching down in front of him. “You gonna be okay?”

Chuck nodded, looking to his right and left, book ended by people he trusted. “Yeah. I’ll be fine.”

“Can I kiss you one more time before I’m not a civilian anymore?”

“In public?” Chuck hissed.

“Sure, I’m not ashamed to be seen with my _keri_. Up to you.”

Gnawing on his lip as he looked around - there were a lot of curious stares - Chuck finally shrugged and leaned forward, pressing his lips to Charlie’s for a soft lingering kiss. 

“You make me happy, Chuck,” Charlie whispered as he stood up and stroked his _keri’s_ cheeks.

As Charlie made his way towards Commodore Mitchell, he was smiling like an idiot. He shook the Commodore’s hand and moved to stand where he was directed to, falling into parade rest and clasping his hands behind his back. He glanced over when there was a wave of excited whispering from the people gathered in the Gate Room. 

A tall young man in an Atlantis Military uniform was coming towards the front. It took Charlie a minute to realize that it was Ronon, and he only did so because he saw Teyla squeeze his hand, smile and take Torra away to sit down. The dreadlocks were gone and his hair was almost regulation length and so light it was almost blonde. He’d also shaved off his goatee and mustache. He looked like a completely different person as he took his place beside Charlie. 

“New doo looks good on ya,” Charlie remarked.

“Thanks,” Ronon grumbled, keeping his eyes fixed on a spot on the wall.

Sheppard came down the main staircase, Lorne at his side. Lorne was looking a lot heavier since the last time Charlie had seen him, and as he watched the XO his suspicions about the timing of some decisions and the shuffling of responsibilities going on in Command rose a bit. Could Lorne be one of the _panor_ that was carrying? There were a lot of unconfirmed rumors spreading about Sheppard having lost a baby when he was shot. If the three ranking officers had all been carrying… no wonder his father had been called back to active service!

Because he was watching for it, Charlie saw Sheppard’s step falter as he spotted Ronon. He stopped on the stairs and tilted his head one way and then the other, and then grinned and headed straight for his friend. “I always wondered what you looked like under all that hair!” Sheppard laughed and clapped Ronon on the shoulder.

“Well, now you know.”

“What made you do it?” Sheppard asked quietly, so only the people very close to them heard. 

“New life. This isn’t Sateda, that life and all the holdovers from it are gone.”

Beside his _keri_ Mitchell was nodding in understanding. “Symbolic shedding of the old, eh?”

“Exactly. I’m of Atlantis now.”

Mitchell smirked. “I’m stealing that line.” He turned and counted noses and waved Sheppard and Lorne into place. Charlie noticed that up close, Lorne looked a little green around the gills and was weaving slightly as he stood at parade rest. The XO pursed his lips and shook his head when Sheppard leaned over and whispered something in his ear.

Searching the audience, Charlie located David Parrish-Lorne sitting with their sleeping baby held against his shoulder. The botanist looked extremely concerned as he stared at his _panor’eten._ Yeah something was up with Lorne. 

Raising his hands, Mitchell waved the crowd into silence, waiting until almost everyone had stopped talking before he cleared his throat and addressed everyone. “Thank you for coming today to help us welcome our new officers. We thought this occasion merited a little more pomp than usual.” 

“The Earth United Military Forces adhered to the old rank system that always split enlisted men from officers. We’re hoping to break down some of those walls and put people where they deserve to be, regardless of how they initially entered the service. In recognition of that, we’ve decided to promote Sergeant Thomas Sils to the rank of full Lieutenant, with all the rights and responsibilities that go with the office. Will you come forward, Lieutenant Sils?”

Looking quite shocked, Sils climbed through the rows of observers and made his way to the front. Looking quite pleased with himself, Mitchell pinned the bar insignia to Sils’ lapel and shook his hand. “Before you go, I have something else to pin to you. Your actions in the field saved the life of Commander Sheppard, and we are presenting you with the Abydos Medal of Distinctive Service.”

Charlie applauded with everyone else as a blushing Sils accepted the medal and shook the commodore’s hand. 

“Go stand beside Lorne,” Mitchell said in an undertone. “And be ready to catch him if he falls over, Tom.” As Sils took his place after shaking hands with Sheppard and Lorne, Mitchell called out, “Captain Laura Cadman.”

She stood and came forward, a serious look on her face. Mitchell held up another medal and pinned it to her uniform. “Also presented with the Abydos Medal. Her quick thinking and calm under pressure saved Sergeant Stackhouse’s life.” There was more applause as Cadman took a place beside Sils. Charlie saw her lean forward and look over at Lorne with concern.

“I have one more promotion, Lieutenant Matthew Scott, hereby promoted to the rank of Captain.” Charlie was relieved to hear that. He worked closely with Scott and it had felt weird that he would be outranking him. Scott marched up, accepted his new insignia and fell into line with the others.

Clearing his throat as the applause died down, Mitchell addressed the crowd. “We’ve slowly started the process of continuing education and training. We’ll need another generation to protect us as our population ages and we thought it best to start early. We currently have a class of officer candidates in training. One of the candidates came to us with a lot of field experience with various police departments around the world. He has proven himself to the military tribunal as well as to the entire senior staff. We therefore have offered Charles Tyler O’Neill a commission as a Captain, which he has accepted.”

Charlie took a breath and stepped forward to accept the rank insignia that Mitchell was prepared to pin on him. The Commodore shook his hand warmly. “Welcome to the Atlantis Military, Captain O’Neill.”

“Thank you sir!” Charlie saluted and stepped back to his place beside Ronon as people applauded.

Smiling, Mitchell said, “I had a little speech to make, but something that was said just a few minutes ago seems much more appropriate. Ronon Dex told me ‘I’m of Atlantis now,’ and I cannot argue with that. Ronon has chosen to serve this city, to make his home and raise his children here. As he once served his home world of Sateda, he has pledged to serve Atlantis and her people. I present Captain Ronon Dex with the insignia of his new rank and officially welcome him to the Atlantis Military.”

The applause was very loud. Mitchell ignored it and administered the oath of office for Charlie and Ronon. And then it was over, they were officially officers.

Just as Mitchell cleared his throat to dismiss the company, Charlie’s dad stood up and loped forward, using his cane as little as possible. “Just a moment, Commodore, I have something to say.” His voice could still silence a whole room when he wanted it to.

“Of course, Marshal.” Mitchell stepped aside and let the elder O’Neill take the floor. Charlie knew what was happening; his dad had let him in on the secret. Mitchell probably thought Jack wanted to say a few words about Charlie to mark the occasion. But his dad wasn’t like that.

“When we sent you here Mitchell, it was never meant to be permanent. We all know how that went. I’ve told you – repeatedly - that I’m retired. You’re a stubborn man and your _keri_ is nearly as bad. Stop pestering me, I am retired and staying that way.” Charlie stifled a laugh as his dad waggled a finger between Mitchell, Sheppard and Lorne.

“Lorne!” O’Neill barked, and Lorne came forward, reaching into his pocket and handing over a small blue box. Lorne took a slight step, as if catching his balance, before falling back into parade rest.

His dad turned to face the crowd. “It occurred to me that there is no one around to properly promote the senior member of the tribunal here. So, while I was temporarily sitting in the Commodore’s chair recently, I pushed some papers around. As befitting my former rank, I hereby promote Commodore Cameron Mitchell to the rank of Marshal, with all the responsibilities that go along with it.” He turned and removed the Commodore’s insignia and passed them to Lorne. Then he opened the box Lorne had handed him and withdrew what had to be his own stars and pinned them to Mitchell’s shoulders. 

Charlie did snort when his dad leaned in and told Mitchell, “Now, take my job and keep it, will ya?”

Both Charlie and Tom Sils saw Lorne go completely pale at the same time. They ran forward, Charlie getting to him just in time to get under the stocky Sub Commander and keep him from hitting the floor. 

“Company dismissed!” Mitchell and Sheppard barked simultaneously. The Gate Room erupted into chaos. After Charlie and Sils carefully lowered the unconscious Lorne to the floor; Charlie scooted around to rest Lorne’s head on his knees. 

He looked up as Aunt Jan knelt beside him and started checking Lorne over. “His pulse is fast, I don’t like his color.” She looked around to find David, who was handing the now crying baby to Wendy Mitchell. “David, was he sick this morning?”

“He’s been sick every morning for a week.”

“I don’t know what I am going to do with you boys!” Aunt Janet hissed. “You’re supposed to tell me these things!” Well, that sort of confirmed Charlie’s suspicions about Lorne.

The milling crowd parted slightly, Cadman was clearing a path so that a gurney could be brought over. Quietly, Sheppard herded people up the stairs, including Charlie’s family. Charlie helped to lift Lorne onto the gurney, and watched as he was wheeled away towards the infirmary. 

“Stubborn idiot,” Mitchell whispered. He crooked a finger at Charlie. “I hate to ruin any party plans you might have had, but I need to shift some stuff over to you and Ronon a bit sooner than anticipated. Come on up to Lorne’s office and we’ll see what we can do. I guess it’s his turn to hang out in the infirmary for a while.”

By the time he left Lorne’s office with a loaded tablet under his arm, Charlie’s head was reeling. He’d been assigned to cover Security, splitting the duties with with Scott and acting as the liaison officer and commander of the Civilian patrols. From the way Mitchell had been talking, this wasn’t a temporary assignment. Marshal Mitchell had chuckled and jokingly asked how Charlie liked being the new Chief of the Atlantis police force. Charlie wondered if he’d been holding that joke in reserve until the opportunity arose to use it.

Ronon had been put in charge of the Gate team rotation, off world mission planning and training for all off world teams. Herding scientists had become Paul Davis’ responsibility, while Cadman was given a larger chunk of paperwork, which she grumbled about quietly under her breath. How did Lorne manage to get all this done by himself on a regular basis? His estimation of the XO’s organizational skills went up several notches. 

He radioed his _keri_ to tell him he would be able to make the small dinner party they had planned to celebrate with the family. He wanted to check in with Matt Scott before he headed home. He’d worked with Scott a few times while helping out Lorne here and there. He liked the young officer and thought they should be able to work well together. He thought it might be a nice gesture to invite Scott to join them for dinner, since the two of them were going to be working together for the foreseeable future.

~*~

  
Evan woke to the sound of beeping machines arranged around him. He groaned and put a hand to his head which was throbbing painfully in time to the beeping. “Shut it off!”

He heard the rustling of fabric and someone actually obeyed his demand. “Better?” Janet Fraiser asked.

“Yeah. I guess I passed out?” He remembered feeling very weird and dizzy and everything suddenly getting fuzzy around the edges.

“Spectacularly. You scared the baby,” David said, clutching his hand.

Evan looked at the baby, snuggled in her sling against David’s chest, sleeping. “She looks highly concerned,” Evan said wryly. “I suspect you were the scared one.”

“I was scared and that scared Chloe.”

“How long was I out?”

Beside him, Doctor Fraiser replied, “Just a few minutes. We took some blood samples. I’ll want more samples.” She jiggled a sterile specimen cup at him. “You haven’t been scanned since the initial tests Carson did on you, so let’s do a sonogram and check progress on the baby.”

“Why did he pass out?” David demanded.

“There could be several reasons; I want to check to rule out anything serious. His blood sugar was a little low and Evan was on his feet for an extended period of time, it could have been a circulation issue. We’ll make sure everything it okay before we let him out of our evil clutches,” she reassured David.

When she walked away, Evan poked at David’s ribs. “I’m fine. I probably didn’t eat or drink enough, I was running around getting ready for the ceremony and then Jack O’Neill distracted me with the promotion thing for Cam.”

David merely huffed impatiently and helped him to sit up. He walked him to the rest room and waited while Evan took care of the sample Fraiser wanted. Then he sat on the stool beside the ultrasound screen to wait for the doctor to do the test. “Front row seat,” David quipped as Doctor Fraiser sat beside him and turned the monitor on. 

She ran the wand over Evan’s rounded belly, clicking buttons as she went. Seeing them at the ultrasound station, Carson came over to stand behind Janet. She had not been at it for long when she stopped and stared at the screen. 

“What is that?” Carson asked, leaning in to look. “Move to the left, Janet, luv. Well I’ll be damned.”

Fraiser looked at Carson and then nodded slowly. “I have never seen this before. Not in a _keri_. I’ve only seen it since coming to Pegasus, in the natives.”

“What’s wrong?” David cried, leaning between the doctors to look at the monitors.

Beckett made a shushing sound and pushed on David’s shoulder, nudging him back. “Easy, nothing is wrong, as such. There are two heartbeats.” He turned the screen around to show Evan and pointed to two shadowy areas. “One here and another over here.”

“Two babies? People don’t have multiple births anymore,” Evan said as he looked at evidence to the contrary.

Carson crossed his arms and grinned. “I’m learning to adapt these days to what can and cannot happen anymore.” Fraiser patted Evan’s arm and ran the wand around on his belly, taking more images. 

Doctor Fraiser was smiling as she said, “Everything looks good. There’s a single placental sac, so we have identical twins. The lining looks to be an adequate thickness. I’d say the thing we need to be most careful with now is Evan’s health. This is going to be an additional strain on his system. And with no previous cases on record, we’re looking at a lot of guesswork as to what to expect. You’ve just been put on complete bed rest my friend; we are taking no chances with you.”

He was carrying twins? This was a situation he had been completely unprepared to withstand. Evan looked at David and then down at his distended middle. “David. David what are we going to do with THREE babies? I was still working on the two babies panic.”  


~*~

  
“How’s Lisa doing, Greer?” Sils asked casually as he closed his locker.

Looking quite pleased, Greer replied, “Oh, she’s still got a bit of morning sickness, but otherwise she’s doing real fine.”

Laura readjusted the Velcro beneath Greer’s arm and patted it into place. “Buddy check - done. We should head down to the Gate Room, today is not a good day to be late.”

As Sils fell into place beside Cadman he asked quietly, “Any change?”

She shook her head, making her ponytail sway back and forth. It had been three weeks and Rodney was still unresponsive to stimuli. “No. Still in a coma.” She was trying to keep all the worrisome thoughts about Rodney at bay. Tom understood that and simply nodded in reply and moved away. She loved that about her teammate, that he gave her room, while still being there if she needed him. 

Greer turned around and walked backwards along the corridor so he could face his teammates. “So, any guesses on our special guest today?”

Laura just smirked, refusing to indulge his curiosity, besides, she only had a hunch. Better to let the boys think she knew something; it was always more fun that way.

Her hunch was correct, Commander Telford was waiting in front of the Gate, suited up and carrying a P-90. He nodded to AG-2 as they approached.

“Commander Telford, sir. Are you our special envoy today?” Cadman asked.

“If you mean, am I the rookie you’re babysitting yes, that would be me. I haven’t had many trips with a Gate Team, so Marshal O’Neill felt it was a good idea for me to garner a little field experience here in Pegasus. At the very least, I’ll have a better frame of reference when I’m shuffling the papers around upstairs.”

Laura nodded, appreciating his candor. When Ronon… Captain Dex… sauntered up behind Telford and took up a position at parade rest, Laura had to tilt her head back to look up at him. “You coming along today too Big Guy?”

“He watches you, I watch him. Marshal’s orders,” Ronon replied, flashing a grin when Telford shot him a dirty look.

Cadman waved up at Amelia to begin the dialing sequence. “The MALP picked up footprints in the dirt near the ramp, so keep your eyes and ears sharp. Deadly force only if absolutely necessary,” Laura reminded her team. When everyone nodded, she turned and went through the event horizon.

“The energy signature was coming from that direction,” Sils said, pointing to the west. 

Tossing her chin, Cadman let Sils take the lead. She still tried to keep Greer between herself and Tom, if at all possible. The green shine still hadn’t quite worn off the young marine yet. She felt extremely confident letting Ronon take their six. There were few soldiers she trusted to guard her back more than the Satedan. 

When they got to the long, low stone building where the energy signal had tripped the MALP sensors, Sils stopped short, stared at the ground and said “Huh.”

Spelled out in rocks was a Gate address. Sitting atop the rocks in the first sigil was something shiny, help down by another rock. While Greer, Ronon and Cadman stood guard with their weapons ready, Sils walked over and picked it up. He looked at it, sniffed it and then waved it at the rest of the team. “SGO issued standard nutrition bar, still smelly, so less than three months old.” It was a documented fact that the stench stayed on the wrappers for at least three months, even when left out in the weather. The chemical additives were that noxious.

Telford took the wrapper as Sils walked back to them. “So, someone from SGO left this message?”

“Or someone that had access to SGO supplies,” Cadman said, glancing at the wrapper briefly. She trusted Sils’ nose to do the sniff test.

“What do we do, sirs?” Greer looked from Cadman to Telford and back to his CO.

Telford tapped his cheek as Cadman closed her eyes to think, when she opened them, she looked around at her team and Telford. “I think we should go. It is obviously a message, left near an energy signature we would be sure to investigate. We’ll check the building here as per our original mission, report back in and send the MALP through to the magic rock address.”

“Sounds like a good plan,” Telford agreed.

The energy signature turned out to be from a small ancient device that none of them could get to work. They wrapped it in a spare t-shirt and stashed it in Greer’s pack to take back to Engineering. 

The MALP revealed nothing particularly dangerous at the address, so they followed it through. 

Near the treeline, they found another rock-written Gate address. This one had a dried out BIC pen sitting on the first rock, with a piece of bark that someone had valiantly tried to scratch a word into. Running her fingers over it, Cadman made out the letters “Ende” but no more.

“Are we going to continue to follow this trail, Captain?” Telford asked as he too touched the small piece of rotting bark.

“I’m intrigued,” she replied. If nothing else, it would make a good story to tell Rodney while she wrote her report later, sitting next to his bed. She didn’t know if he could hear her, but it made her feel better to talk to him instead of just sitting silently beside him.

“As am I,” Telford agreed. Greer and Sils and Ronon all nodded.

“Let’s reset the MALP and move on.”

They went to three more planets. Each one had a new address and a piece of something that was from Earth. At the third planet, they found a ragged slice of a shoulder patch, obviously cut with a knife, faded from the weather, but still legible. Telford stared at it and scratched a fingernail over threads that might have once been brightly colored but were now gray. 

Looking over Telford’s shoulder, Greer squinted at the patch. “I’ve seen this before. I can’t remember where. Ica…”

Ronon shrugged and started pacing, his eyes watchful as he surveyed their surroundings. 

Snapping his fingers, Greer exclaimed, “Icarus! I heard about a project at Area 51 when I was stationed there, a big science project that got shut down without warning not too long before the Hrsul came.”

“Greer,” Cadman hissed at him and tossed her head at the silent Telford. When the Sergeant looked perplexed, she explained quietly, “Commander Telford was the Commander at the Icarus Base.”

“What kind of project was it, Commander?” Sils asked.

“Energy, we were looking for a new energy source.”

Ronon stopped his pacing and said, “Did you find it?”

“No. We had sent a team of scientists to Earth to report in on progress, but they never came back. We got word that SGO had shut down the project. We were recalled to SGO and were in the process of packing up the base when the Hrsul attacked Earth.”

“We really should keep going,” Greer ventured quietly when Telford didn’t elaborate and no one disagreed.

~*~

  
“Someone watching us,” Ronon whispered over the radio, just as they passed under the shade of the trees and started up a path. They had found no stone legend this time, no address anywhere. This might be the start of the trail.

Laura clicked her radio and spoke in an undertone. “These paths are well worn, but not from animal traffic. Keep your eyes peeled, be wary of an ambush.”

“That will be far enough. Identify yourselves, please,” a voice called a few minutes later. Immediately, the team moved into a defensive circle, back to back.

Glancing over at Telford, Cadman caught the barest of nods, he was deferring to her. “I’m Captain Cadman, we’re peaceful explorers.”

The voice that answered held a trace of humor. “Peaceful explorers that carry P-90s?”

“Who are you?” Cadman demanded. Very few Pegasus natives knew the designation of their weapons.

“Lower your weapons and I’ll come down and talk to you.” Her team could have them up again in a heartbeat, so Cadman nodded for them to comply.

The man that came around a large tree to stand in their path was dressed in the remains of Levi’s jeans and what might have once been an SGO-issued black shirt, but was now little more than gray rags. He was carrying a P-90, which seemed to be in better condition than he was. He held the weapon up over his head and kept his other hand out before him. 

“Easy, no shooting, please. Where did you people come from? Please, please tell me you’re from Atlantis.”

“We’re from Atlantis,” Cadman replied in a deadpan voice. After the man had let out three sharp whistles, Laura prodded, “Where are you from? What is your name?” 

Three more weary and tattered looking people came out of the trees, armed only with sharpened sticks. They kept their distance, watching Grey Shirt for their cues. 

“I’m from Earth; my name is Major Mark Carter. I was a researcher at SGO, out of Area 51.”

Telford cleared his throat. “So tell us, Major, how did you come to be here?”

“I’m not the one to speak for us all, if you’ll come with us I’ll take you to him. I promise, my word as an SGO officer, no harm will come to you, to any of you.”

AG-2 was led through the trees to a village of huts and lean-tos. Every person they passed as they walked between the rows of huts stopped and stared, many offered a smile or a nod. “Come this way, please. I’m just going to warn him that you’re here; he is not in the best of health these days, we try not to excite him.” Carter pushed aside a woven reed curtain and went inside. 

He pulled the curtain aside again after barely a minute and ushered them inside. The single room was lit only by the open windows on either side, the reed shades propped up by sticks. A man was reclining on what seemed to be a straw bed with reed mats atop it, with blankets over him, despite the warmth of the day. He raised his hand and feebly beckoned them forward. “Come in, come in,” he said in a weak voice and coughed wetly.

As soon as they got close enough that the man’s face was no longer in shadow, Telford and Cadman snapped to attention and saluted. 

“Marshal Hammond sir!” Telford barked. At Telford’s exclamation and Cadman’s salute, the rest of AG-2 snapped to attention as well.

Telford stepped forward and crouched beside the Marshal’s bed. “Sir, how did you get here? What happened?”

Coughing, Hammond reached up and patted Telford’s arm. Painfully, haltingly, he rasped, “Never thought to see you again, Telford, Cadman. Been waiting and hoping that Atlantis would come. Damned if that Rush wasn’t right, eh Mark?” Hammond said to Carter and then began choking as a coughing fit overtook him. A young blond woman standing in the shadows came forward and helped him sit up, rubbing his back. The Marshal clasped her hand as he started to breathe more easily and whispered, “Thank you, Olivia.”

“Seems so, Marshal. His plan seems to have worked,” Major Carter agreed. He picked up the narrative as he handed Hammond a clay mug of water. “We were testing a prototype star drive when the reports of the Hrsul attacks on our allies came. We shut down Icarus and co-opted the project personnel that were still on Earth to our department. We ramped up the final preparations on the ship just before the Hrsul reached Earth. Fearing the worst, SGO and the World Council agreed that it might be wise to send some of our best and brightest to safety. Everyone that was part of the development of the _Endeavor_ was offered the chance to evacuate on her maiden voyage.”

Cadman looked around at her team and then back at the Marshal. “We had a starship? Earth had a starship?”

At that question, Hammond nodded sadly and whispered, “For a little while.”

“When we lost touch with Earth as well as the Alpha site, Langara and our other allies, we feared the worst. We had a crew of one hundred and sixty seven, including some family members of the scientists and SGO personnel that were aboard. The star drive worked like a dream. We made a series of jumps, trying to get to the edge of the Milky Way galaxy so that we could try to contact Atlantis by Gate. Doctor Miller, the designer of the drive, was aboard and was making modifications as we traveled.”

Coughing slightly, Hammond gripped his mug in his fist and said, “Made it to Pegasus in one piece.”

“Eventually, we jumped and found ourselves in the Pegasus Galaxy. We stopped to refill our water tanks, and ran into some trouble. We did not have adequate defenses when we ran into a group that called themselves Travelers. They were no more than interstellar pirates. They seized the _Endeavor_ and stranded us here. It was apparently the first planet they came to with a Gate.”

“I suppose that was a small mercy,” Cadman interjected, and Telford nodded in agreement.

“They kept almost everything from the ship that had any kind of value and without a MALP or radios, we couldn’t explore. None of us had the Gate address of Atlantis memorized,” the woman aiding the Marshal said in a hushed voice.

“I used to know it, before I got confused,” Hammond grumbled with a frown. “Some of the ones they took would have known it.”

“Jackson knew it,” Carter agreed sadly.

Confused, Cadman interrupted. “Excuse me sir, took?”

“The travelers dumped the people they regarded as a waste of their resources here. They took the engineers, most of them anyway, before we figured out what they were planning as they sorted us and started lying about our experience,” Carter said. “They killed some of our people when we resisted. Most of the SGO soldiers are dead.”

“Who left the trail?” Telford asked.

With a small smile, Carter replied, “That would have been Doctor Rush. He was a bit headstrong, and couldn’t settle. He came up with a plan to jump from Gate to Gate, using a remote controlled camera that he managed to keep away from the Travelers. He called it a Kino, said he found it in a box of artifacts at 51. The only one that would go with him was a grieving _keri_ woman named Chloe that had lost her _panor’eten_ as well as the will to live.”

Sils blinked. “So they’re still out there somewhere, leaving bits of clues everywhere they go?”

“They’ve been gone nearly a year. Who knows where they are now?” the woman that was wiping the Marshal’s brow said.

“How many are you?” Ronon spoke for the first time. Leave it to the Satedan to want to know the numbers, Cadman mused to herself. 

Hammond sighed heavily. “Sixty three. The rest were taken, killed, or died during our time here.”

Cadman sucked in a breath. One hundred and one souls lost, two traipsing around in the unknown. They would lose no more, if she could help it. “Tell your people to pack it up Major Carter; we’re going to get you to some food, shelter and medical care.”

Smiling faintly, Hammond settled back against the cushions and said, “It will be all right now.”

“I strongly suspect you will find them all outside that door. Throughout the hard times here, we’ve tried to keep alive the hope that Rush and Chloe would succeed. Everyone knows what your coming means to us.”

“Sils, you’re with me. Commander Telford, would you mind staying here with the Marshal? And Captain Dex of course.”

Telford nodded and pulled out his datapad, going over to speak quietly with Olivia, the woman that was nursing the Marshal. Dex walked the perimeter of the hut, standing guard.

Going to the reed curtain, Laura peeked out and sure enough, there were about fifty people gathered around watching the door. She pushed the curtain aside and called out, “So, anyone here ready for a little jaunt to Atlantis?”

The crowd cheered and began hugging each other happily. Sils and Cadman made their way around, helping people gather their few belongings, break down the village and haul the gear to the Gate.

As Laura was dropping a bundle of tanned hides beside the DHD, a petite, light haired girl of about four, perhaps five appeared near Laura’s side. The girl silently watched her with wide eyes for a while. Like everyone else she was dirty and dressed in rags. “Hello, what’s your name?” Laura asked.

“She will not answer,” an exotic woman with dark curly hair snapped and walked away, after giving the child a dirty look.

A young black woman came over to Laura and waved her hand at the back of the woman flouncing away. “Pay Sha’re no mind. Sunny stopped talking after the Travelers… she was there when they… when her parents… the poor little thing was only three.” Cadman thought the woman had introduced herself as Astrid earlier.

“Oh.” Tugging on the end of one blonde pigtail, Cadman knelt down and dug into the pocket of her TAC vest. She pulled out a chocolate covered nutrition bar, one of the last of them to be had in Atlantis. She’d swiped it from Rodney’s stash, just to have a little piece of something to remind her of him when she was away from the city. “Hey Sunny, wanna share this with me?”

The girl tilted her head and looked at the half a bar Laura held out to her. Laura took a bite to show her it was harmless. Delicately, the girl plucked it from Laura’s fingers and began to nibble on it. She licked her lips appreciatively and smiled. For the next hour, she was Laura’s tiny shadow, following a few steps behind and humming tunelessly. 

“Oh, I see Sunny likes you, eh?” A communications specialist named Bishop asked as he spotted Cadman and her new companion. “Is she in the way? I can take her out of your hair for a while.”

“Nah, she’s fine.” Laura smiled at Sunny and resumed playing pack mule for the _Endeavor’s_ survivors. 

Later the group gathered in front of the Gate, waiting for Hammond to be carried down. The Marshal was in such poor health he couldn’t walk for any great distance. Sitting on the edge of the ramp beside Astrid, Laura affectionately tugged one of Sunny’s pigtails again, making the tiny girl grin up at her. Curiosity made her ask, “Who looks after her?”

“Oh, everyone takes a turn. She’s a good girl. Aren’t you, Sunny?” Astrid leaned over and looked at Sunny for confirmation. She almost looked like she was going to say something, but then her gaze fell on Sha’re, glaring at her from across the clearing before the Gate. Looking away from Sha’re quickly, Sunny just shrugged and continued to finger the embroidered badge on Laura’s sleeve. 

Not liking the sound of that, Laura asked, “So, she gets bounced around a lot?”

“When someone has time, they take her, and then pass her along when they have chores to do. It isn’t perfect, but it’s the best we could do under the circumstances. She’s the only child, none of us here were parents. The Marshal tried to care for her for a while, but then he took ill.”

Something in Laura’s gut turned over as she looked down at the orphaned child that nobody seemed to really want. It might have been her loneliness at not having Rodney; it might have been her terror at losing him. It might have been the painful longing she felt at not having a child of her own, at being infertile and destined to be alone. As she stared at Sunny, her determination to keep this abandoned child grew and grew until it was all she could think about.

Laura turned sideways a little and held her arms open. Without hesitation, Sunny leapt at her, wrapping tiny arms around her neck and clinging. Laura Cadman had not realized she had room for anyone but Rodney in her heart until that very moment. 

No one was taking this child from her. 

No one.

~*~

  
Coming out of the isolation room, Carson shook his head sadly at the Atlantis Command staff that had been holding up the wall while he did his exams. “I’m sorry lads; I’ve no good news for you. Marshal Hammond has lung cancer and it has spread too far for me to do anything at this point but make him more comfortable.”

Frustrated that Hammond’s rescue had come too late, Telford grunted and punched the wall beside Sheppard’s shoulder. Cam slapped Telford’s back and gave his shoulder a squeeze. “You did your best, Dave.”

Mark Carter hugged his sister Samantha tightly as she pressed her face to his shoulder. Their happy reunion was now soured and tainted with sadness. Marshal Hammond had been a close friend of Jacob Carter, Sam and Mark’s father; he had been a constant in their lives as part of their extended family. This news was devastating to the Carters. “How long does he have, doctor?” Mark asked.

“Not long at all. A few weeks at most. He has asked to see you Jack,” Carson said, gesturing with a wave of his hand. “There are masks and gowns on the shelf beside the door. You’ll need to wear gloves as well.” With a sad expression on his face, O’Neill stroked his _keri’s_ hair as she clung to her brother and went in.

Clearing his throat, Sheppard asked. “Is his health that fragile, CB?”

“Aye, John, I’m afraid so.”

~*~

  
Mark sat across from his sister as she nursed her baby. Her baby, his baby sister had a baby. O’Neill had gone off to talk to someone named Lorne about the arrangements Uncle George wanted when the time came.

“You said you had something else you had to tell me, something I wasn’t going to like,” Sam said as she raised Hope to her shoulder and began to pat her back gently. 

He nodded, having rehearsed this for the day he had to tell her about her best friend, should he ever find her again. “There is no easy way to tell you. Daniel is dead.”

She gulped and nodded stiffly. “I’ll need to tell Cameron. And Jack, of course. We assumed as much, when he didn’t come through with any of the other refugees. Daniel was always a survivor, if he’d lived, he would have made it here.”

“He almost did. He was on the _Endeavor,_ Sam.”

“He… what happened?”

“The Travelers were trying to take Sunny from her mother. Her father had just been killed. Sunny was screaming her head off and her mom was screeching like a banshee; they’d just shot her _keri_ as an example to the others to make them cooperate. They kept ordering Sunny to shut up and waving their weapons around. When one of them aimed a weapon at Sunny, Jackson jumped into the line of fire and shoved Sunny aside. He died instantly; the shot carried right through him and hit Sunny’s mom. The shock shut Sunny up and Olivia grabbed her and ducked to the back of the hold to keep her out of sight.”

There were tears shimmering in Sam’s eyes as she listened, cradling her baby and kissing her head, probably imagining the situation and what she would do if it had been Hope being threatened.

“Sunny hasn’t spoken since. Sha’re has also been pretty tight lipped, but you know she was never fond of any of us to begin with.”

“I remember. So we lost Daniel and gained… her.”

Mark pulled a face. “Unfortunately. She hates the child and makes no secret of it. She blames Sunny for Daniel’s death.”

Sam shook her head and clucked her tongue. “Sha’re can have a nasty mouth. I don’t doubt she intimidated that child. Who is taking care of her now?”

“Well, we were shuffling her around, but your Captain Cadman took a shine to her and carried her off when we got here to Atlantis.”

“Cadman is good people. She’ll look after her, or see that someone else does. There are plenty of childless couples around here that would love to take her in.”

~*~

  
“Marshal, do you have a moment?” Janet Fraiser asked as Cam wandered away from the isolation room to join John at the incubator. Nodding, Cam followed her. She pointed to an exam table where Cadman was perched with a small waif in her lap. “Captain Cadman has gotten a little attached to the child. So much so that she won’t let us take her to do a full exam and run a body scan on her. The Captain has been getting increasingly agitated.”

Cam could see that the hold Laura had on the tiny girl was a bit desperate. The child didn’t seem bothered; she was doing a bit of clutching at Laura as well. It seemed to be a mutual cling. “Do you want me to order her to let go?”

“Commander Telford gave that a casual try earlier, as I said, she’s being resistant. I think the whole thing with… well, I think she’s distraught.”

“I know about Rodney, Jan. Does the child have kin?”

Janet shook her head. “Her parents are dead. The girl, Sunny, saw it happen. She doesn’t talk, I’d like Heightmeyer to work with her, but until Cadman lets her go…”

“I’ll talk to her, see what I can manage.” Mitchell waddled over towards Cadman, one hand rubbing at his lower back. He really needed to sit down, he’d been on his feet too long today.

The girl, Sunny, watched Cam warily as he approached, Laura shifted a little but didn’t show any sign of loosening her hold. Her eyes were a little wild as she looked up at him. Ignoring his officer for a moment, Cam spoke directly to the child, leaning down to get nearer to her level. “Well hello, welcome to Atlantis, Sunny.”

He glanced up at Cadman. “Laura, the doctors want to check Sunny over and maybe give her some vitamins and run a body scan. She’s been out there for over a year. How about letting Janet have her for a bit? You can go along and supervise the tests if you like, in case she gets frightened.”

Cadman tilted her head and looked at him. “They’ll try to take her, give her to someone else, to a home with two parents, to someone on the Orphan List.” The Orphan List had come about as a way for them to place some of the refugee orphans they occasionally found during away missions and brought back through to the city. The list was pretty long. Many couples were hoping to adopt a child. With things the way they stood now, Cadman could never hope to keep the girl. 

“Rodney will know what to do. I need to talk to Rodney. I have to see what he says about it.” 

Crap, Cadman seemed to be coming apart in front of him, Janet had been right. Rodney was still in a deep coma with no sign of waking and almost no brain activity, the stress had to be wearing on his lover. But how could he help her now? 

“Look, Laura, I’m sorry I couldn’t do anything about Rodney’s request, not yet. But this I have a say in. I’m going to put you on the list. You’ll have to have a sit down with Doctor Heightmeyer and go through an evaluation. If she clears you, and she feels this is the right situation for everyone involved, I’ll do my best to see that Sunny can stay with you permanently, okay?” He wasn’t entirely certain how he was going to accomplish that without a certain degree of uproar and a lot of official protests, but he would try.

“Really?”

“You’re a good officer Cadman, and I think you’ve gotten a raw deal out of the genetics pool. I think you’ll make a good mom. Now, would you like to carry Sunny over to the scanner and stand beside her so she doesn’t get scared?” He thought he saw Cadman’s lower lip tremble slightly, before she bit down on it and nodded. She slid off the exam table and carried Sunny towards the Ancient scanner. 

Janet clasped Cam’s hand briefly and mouthed ‘thank you’ at him before going over to get to work.

**May 29th**

The rain was cold and hard on the day of the funeral. 

The mourners huddled in the rain through the short ceremony that was being presided over by Marshal Jack O’Neill.

“And so we consign the body of Marshal George Hammond to the sea of Lantea, as was his wish. He wanted to rest here, in the sea near the city where the last of his people now live.” Jack gave the signal and the honor guard standing at the end of the East Pier pushed the casket into the waves. 

The memorial service had threatened to be a somber affair, but soon stories about Marshal Hammond and SGO and the old days on Earth brought people comfort in remembering.

To mark the passing of the man that had saved so many of their lives, Cam Mitchell declared May 29th to be a holiday on Atlantis, to be a day of remembrance of George Hammond.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was having great trouble adding a scene at the beginning of this chapter. There's supposed to be George Hammond's funeral up there.


	18. What's in a Name?

**May 22**  
The closer the date of the caesarian section came, the more nervous Chuck became. Charlie tried his best to calm him down, but even the undivided attention of his concerned _panor_ was not enough to calm the _keri’s_ overwhelming case of nerves. He called Charlie on the coms for absolutely no reason several times a day, just to hear his partner’s voice. 

He had to stop working about two weeks before the due date. He was too uncomfortable sitting up at his workstation to remain on duty. The last day he worked, Amelia and the others that worked in Command, including the senior staff, threw him a small party with a cake and some presents for the baby. Charlie was invited of course. Chuck’s favorite gift was a soft, Athosian wool, lavender colored blanket that had been knitted by Commodore Mitchell’s mother just for their baby. That night as Charlie reviewed reports at his desk, Chuck sat with the blanket spread over his knees, running his hand over it as his knee bounced up and down nervously. 

Three days after his last day of work, Chuck woke in the middle of the night. That in itself was no longer unusual, he had to pee frequently. 

But the pain he felt in his gut was completely new and it apparently freaked him out. 

“Charlie! Charlie wake up!” Chuck shook him awake, gripping his shoulder painfully. The lights were already on, so Charlie could see that something was disturbingly wrong with his partner.

“What’s wrong?” Charlie came alert instantly, sitting up and leaning over Chuck as his _keri_ panted for breath and wriggled from side to side, making faces. 

“Pain,” Chuck whimpered, kicking his heels on the bed as another wave washed over him. “A lot of pain. Oh, damn. Charlieeeeee!”

Charlie immediately rolled to the side of the bed and grabbed his radio. “This is Captain O’Neill, medical emergency in my quarters.”

“What’s going on?” Janet Fraiser, her voice sleepy and scratchy, responded within seconds. 

“Chuck is hurting, Aunt Jan. He’s writhing on the bed in pain,” feeling helpless, Charlie was rubbing his hands over Chuck’s arms and middle, trying to sooth him.

“I am on my way with a team, Charlie. Ask him where the worst of the pain is.”

He caught Chuck’s tearstained face in his hands. “Chuck, baby, where is the pain? Tell me where it hurts.”

“Everywhere!” Chuck sobbed in reply, rolling awkwardly onto his side and curling over as much as he possibly could. “Everything hurts, Charlie. Make it stop!”

Charlie knelt beside him on the mattress, keeping his grip on his _keri’s_ face. “I know, I know. But where is it the worst? Doctor Fraiser needs to know.”

Fumbling for his hand, Chuck grabbed it and gripped it tightly. He brought Charlie’s hand to a spot near his left side, low on his belly, just below the curve. He conveyed the information to Janet.

“Okay. This isn’t too unusual for a _keri_ birth, Charlie. I was worried that something else might be going on. Tell Chuck that the baby has moved into the birth position. See if he remembers the book; give him something to focus on other than the pain. We’ll be there in two minutes.”

“They’ll be here in two minutes. Aunt Jan said this is normal, the baby is moving into the birth position. Remember when we read about this? Remember how the book said that sometimes it happens suddenly, all at once? That’s what’s happened, baby. The contractions are what you’re feeling.” He stroked Chuck’s face and neck as he spoke as calmly as he could. He felt emotions he had never felt before as his lover squirmed in pain. He wanted to lash out and strike something, while at the same time; he wanted to gather Chuck up and rock him and hold him until all the pain stopped. 

Chuck was apparently beyond words, he didn’t answer Charlie’s questions. He reached around to untangle Chuck from the sheets, tugging the bedclothes off his _keri_ and tossing them to the foot of the bed. He chewed his lower lip, wondering what else he could do until the med team arrived. He leaned over and pressed a kiss to Chuck’s forehead. “What can I do, baby? I don’t know what to do. How can I help you?”

The door chimed and opened, the med team had an override code that gave them access to all quarters in the city, so Charlie didn’t have to leave his _keri’s_ side to let them in. Charlie had never been so glad to see his Aunt Jan in his life as he was in that moment. “Help him, please,” Charlie begged as Chuck let out a scream of pain. The sound went straight down Charlie’s spine; he had never felt such physical pain from a noise someone else had made before. Until that moment, he had never truly understood the emotions that led to a _panor_ losing complete control in the throes of a berserker. It frightened him, knowing he had that capability within him, even more knowing that this was the kind of situation that brought a berserker on.

He forced himself to not interfere as Aunt Jan put her hands on his _keri_. She was the one who would make the pain stop. He kept repeating that over and over in his mind as a mantra in order to keep control over the urge he had to go over and yank her away from Chuck, to push all the people away from his _keri_.

“All right, Chuck, all right. Shhh. We’re going to make it stop. Shhh.” After a quick wipe with a prep pad, she pressed a hypodermic needle to Chuck’s back and gave him an injection. “Easy, sweetie, try to breathe. Deep breaths, in and out. You should feel that start to take effect very soon.”

Charlie stood back as the team moved around the bed, getting ready to move Chuck as soon as Doctor Fraiser gave the word to do so. He hugged his arms around his middle as Chuck continued to thrash awkwardly and moan in pain. He screamed again twice and each time, Charlie felt his own heart stop in response. His _keri_ was in agony. He barely held his panic in check, knowing that if he lost his shit the med team would make him leave, or worse, sedate him until everything was over, fearing a _panor_ berserker. 

He knew the moment the drugs hit his _keri_. Chuck went still and seemed to deflate against the mattress. Charlie let go of the breath he had been holding.

“There now,” Aunt Janet soothed, wiping a cloth over Chuck’s face and giving him an encouraging smile. “Better?”

“Yeah, thanks Doctor Fraiser. It hurt so much.”

“That was from the pressure, you don’t have a proper cervix to take any of the strain. There is nowhere for that little one to go, after all, at least not without surgical help. That shot will stop the contractions for a short time while we get you prepped for surgery. I’ll give you a few seconds to kiss your _panor_ goodbye until after we’re finished with the delivery. Come on over, Charlie.”

Aunt Janet moved aside and Charlie took her place as the med team wheeled a gurney close to the side of the bed. Charlie leaned over and kissed Chuck’s lips softly and smoothed a hand over his hair. “You’re going to be fine. You’ve got the best doctor taking care of you. I love you.”

“Love you too. You’re scared.”

“Out of my wits,” Charlie confessed.

Chuck took his hand and squeezed it. “Don’t be. I’m not.”

“How could you not be?” Charlie asked in amazement. His nervous little _keri_ was now the picture of quiet serenity. He thought it had to be the drugs.

Chuck smiled. “I spent the last month being freaked out about tonight and now that it’s here, I dunno, I just know Doctor Fraiser will take care of me and the baby.”

Smiling, Charlie kissed him again as Aunt Janet squeezed his shoulder. “Time to go, before that shot wears off.”

“Let’s go!” Chuck yelled, calm demeanor gone a she was reminded the shit was only temporary. “I don’t want to feel that pain. Not ever, ever again!”

~*~

  


“Charlie.”

He turned at the sound of the voice and was enveloped in his father’s waiting arms. He sagged against the elder O’Neill and let go of the emotions he had been keeping a tight rein on since Chuck had been wheeled away into surgery. Of anyone, his father would understand what he was going through, he was _panor_ too. He had done this same helpless waiting.

Jack patted his back and held him until the shaking stopped and he could think clearly again. “It was horrible, Dad. He was in so much pain. There was nothing I could do.”

“If it is any consolation, I’m sure he’ll forget just how badly it hurt. The memory fades over time,” Sam said, stroking a hand over Charlie’s cheek and leaning in to kiss his forehead. He turned from his dad and pulled Sam into a tight hug, soaking up the comfort she freely offered.

It seemed like they had just taken Chuck away when the doors opened and Aunt Jan came out, a tiny bundle in her arms. She smiled broadly at Charlie as she walked up to him. “Congratulations, Daddy. Everything went perfectly, your _keri_ is on his way to recovery now. I thought you might like to meet your daughter.”

Charlie stared down at the tiny face. Two dark eyes peeped up at him, a nubbin of a nose, and a pair of lips that couldn’t be any wider across than the tip of his thumb. “A girl. We made a little girl.”

“Would you like to hold her?”

He nodded vigorously and held his arms out. After Aunt Jan passed her over, she leaned down and kissed the baby’s forehead. “I get to do that now that all of my official duties are done. I look forward to spoiling her. You should be able to see Chuck in about half an hour; the local anesthetic should be worn off by then.”

“Does he know about her?”

“Yes. He’s a bit dopey, but he gave me a big smile and said that you would be happy, since he knew you wanted a little girl.”

Confused, Charlie looked at everyone gathered around admiring the newest O’Neill. “I never said that.”

Slapping Charlie’s shoulder, Jack let out a laugh. “Anyone that has seen you with Hope would have known it, Charlie. You’re girl crazy.”

He nuzzled the baby’s soft cheek. “I would have loved her just the same if she had been a boy. Is everything okay? She’s okay?”

“Everything is fine. We ran all the tests, and she’s very healthy. She’s _keri,_ there is no doubt about that, she has extremely high levels of KSG.”

Sam was grinning from ear to ear as she played with the baby’s fingers, which she had managed to extract from the receiving blanket. “Have you and Chuck decided on names?”

“We thought Sarah Daniela O’Neill,” Charlie said, carefully watching his father’s reaction. Jack blinked rapidly and nodded before turning aside, ducking his head and rubbing at his eyes with thumb and forefinger. Sam sucked in a breath and sighed, not bothering to hide the tears that dripped down her cheeks. “Chuck had wanted to name a girl for Mom, since we started talking about it. And we both decided on Daniela, after we heard what happened.”

“Daniel would have been deeply honored,” Aunt Jan said, swallowing as she stroked her fingers over the baby’s cheek. “I’m going to go see how Chuck is doing.” She spun on her heel and strode off rapidly. Charlie noticed that she wiped her eyes a few times as she walked away. 

Jack demanded the opportunity to hold his first grandchild, so Charlie had to share her. Sam made faces at her _panor_ as Jack teased her, calling Sam Grandma and Granny and Nana as he cooed and made faces at the newborn. 

A nurse came and took the baby away far too soon, and Charlie had to kiss her goodnight. He was allowed to see Chuck not long after that, so the blow was mitigated somewhat. His _keri_ was awake, though obviously fighting to remain so. Charlie ran to the bedside and grabbed Chuck’s hand as he bent to kiss Chuck’s lips sweetly.

“She’s beautiful. And perfect. You’re beautiful and perfect too,” he gushed excitedly. “We made a baby, Chuck. We’re dads.”

“Can’t do it again,” Chuck whispered.

Charlie tilted his head in confusion. “What?”

“Wrecked the egg sac, can’t do it again,” Chuck yawned.

“Let’s get through the first one before we go discussing more, okay, _keri?”_

Chuck squeezed his hand and smiled at him, a light of mischief in his sleepy eyes. “Unless you want to take a turn at it, I hear all the fashionable _panor_ are doing it now.”

“Let’s see how we do with Sarah, huh?”

“Did your dad like the name?”

Charlie pushed the hair back from Chuck’s eyes where it had flopped limply over his forehead. “He got a little teared up. We made Aunt Jan and Sam cry.”

“Made beautiful baby. Made family cry. I think our work here is done for today.” Chuck yawned again.

“Indeed it is. You sleep, _keri_ I’m going to go spread the word to the rest of the base. Or maybe I’ll just crash facedown on the bed. One or the other.” He kissed Chuck softly and sighed happily as he headed out of the infirmary. 

 

 **June**  
Since turning up pregnant, Sub Commander Caldwell had been restricted to light duty. Due to his age, he was under strict medical orders. He had to check in with Medical once a week, his diet was regulated and every blood test known to man was performed every time the doctors saw him. 

If it were not for Paul, Steven was not sure what he might have done about the pregnancy. His _keri_ was happier than Steven could ever remember him being. Their relationship was better than ever, they talked more and spent more time together. He hated to admit it, but the baby seemed to be bringing them closer together. 

Steven wished that he could be as happy about this as Paul was. He was still unsure about being a parent, and how a baby was going to impact the tenuous bond he had going with Paul. He tried not to think about the physical part of this. He was completely freaked out about it. He had nightmares, bad dreams that woke him screaming in the night with his _keri_ holding and soothing him. 

Weakness. Above all, Steven hated the weakness. He hated being reliant on other people. It bruised his ego each time Paul had to step up and be the strong one through all this baby stuff going on.

He wasn’t happy being forced off his Gate team and onto desk duty. He had ended up in the department that was cataloging supplies and parts. It was boring and he hated it. But he put on his uniform every day and went to work, plastering a serious expression on his face and pretending to be content. 

Not allowed to lift any boxes, he couldn’t even help the people in his department with the simple task of moving a crate from one place to another. When he needed to sort through a case of tiny parts, someone had to lift the box and place it on the table for him. The constant reminder of his condition rubbed him wrong.

His shift was not even halfway over and he was already exhausted. Sitting on a stool at a worktable, Steven was rooting through a box that someone thought might have an electrical fitting that matched a part Engineering needed to do a repair. The edges of his vision went fuzzy and he felt very light headed. He grasped the edges of the box in front of him and closed his eyes, willing the weakness away. When he opened his eyes, it seemed to have passed. He spotted the red colored edge of the piece he needed in the box and reached for it. 

That was the last thing he remembered. When he opened his eyes, he was flat on his back and Paul was leaning over him. His _keri’s_ eyes were red rimmed and shimmering wetly. He clutched at Steven’s hand and held it tightly. “You’re awake. I was so worried you weren’t going to wake up, they said you reacted badly to the anesthesia. They were afraid you were going to have a heart attack.” 

“Heart attack? Anesthesia? What happened?”

“The sac ruptured, they had to do surgery,” Paul said gently.

Surgery? He pieced the information together and squeezed Paul’s hand. “I’m sorry Paul. I know you wanted this.”

Paul nodded and stroked Steven’s forehead. “The important thing is that you’re okay. You were lucky that you weren’t alone. The crew down in Stores got you on a stretcher and took you up to Medical after you passed out.” 

“Did they say why it happened?” 

His _keri_ shrugged. “Doctor Lam said it happens a lot in _keri_ pregnancies. The embryonic sac can’t sustain the fetus after a certain point and basically just breaks down. She said that is probably the cause, they’re running tests on the...” Paul choked back a sob. “... they’re running tests.”

“Aw, Paulie,” Steven hated seeing his _keri_ so distraught. If he could go back and do something to fix this, he would. He reached up and cupped a hand around the back of Paul’s neck and pulled him close, rubbing his back awkwardly. This was such a mess. He felt horrible and small and petty to be relieved that the situation had taken care of itself and Paul didn’t have to know how he really felt about the whole thing.

~*~

  


Though he had been very resistant to the idea of therapy at first, as time went on Dave could see that it was helping him. He had come to realize a lot of things about his relationship with Janelle, things that made him angry. Since she wasn’t here to yell at about the things he was now furious about, he had a whole new set of issues to learn to cope with.

Doctor Heightmeyer had offered him the opportunity to talk with one of the other members of the Mental Health Department, but he had decided to stay with her. She knew a lot about his background already, from working with John over the years. Kate was kind, and she didn’t make him feel like his sessions with her were a bother or something to be ashamed of. 

It was odd, learning to make decisions and getting used to living by himself. He had bonded with Janelle straight out of High School, his _panor’eten_ had ultimately made all the decisions about the way they lived their lives. Therapy made Dave start to see how much control Janelle really had over him since they had been together. The pattern of his days was the one set by Janelle years before. He had to make a conscious effort to break out of the habits and find a new pattern that worked for him, to do the the way he wanted to do them.

He found he liked staying up late reading and sleeping until the very last minute that he could get away with and still not be late for work in the greenhouse. His _panor’eten_ had always insisted that the lights be shut off when she was ready to sleep. The habit of reading early in the morning was one Dave did not mind breaking.

Kate advised him to make changes slowly, to enjoy each step that he took and to examine the ‘why’ behind everything that he did. 

The latest step he had taken was eating his meals in the Mess Hall. Janelle had hated eating in public; she claimed it felt like a school cafeteria to her. Dave used to pick up their food and take it back to their quarters to eat at the tiny table there. In the months leading up to Janelle’s death, more often than not, he ate alone, because she didn’t bother to come home.

The first time he decided to eat there, it was because a few people from the greenhouse asked him if he wanted to have lunch with them. He hesitated for a few moments, undecided, but then Doctor Parrish had smiled at him and said in a coaxing voice, “Today is chocolate pudding day.” 

He had shrugged and nodded and gone along. Surprisingly, he enjoyed the meal as well as the conversation. The time flew by quickly and then it was almost time to return to the greenhouse. He excused himself, telling everyone he would catch up with them at work. He was very nervous, but Kate had told him that he needed to follow through on the things he decided, and he had decided to go and say hello to Momma Mitchell. She had told him to stop in and visit, but he had been too ashamed until now. 

She had been very kind to him right after Janelle’s death. Visiting with him in the infirmary while he was ‘under observation’ for a few days after Janelle died, she had insisted that he call her Momma, telling him everyone did and that he had more right than most since he was John’s brother and John was one of her boys. 

Walking to the door leading back to the kitchen, he poked his head in and looked around. He spotted Momma’s blonde hair pulled back into a chignon and walked towards her. She had her back to him so he cleared his throat as he approached and called quietly, “Hello, Momma. Are you busy?”

She looked over her shoulder at him and smiled. “I’m never too busy for one of my boys. It’s good to see you Dave. Pull up a stool; I’m doing cookies for the evening crew.”

“I can’t stay long, I just wanted to pop in and say hello,” he had never said that before in his life, he had never in his life “popped in” on anyone. 

“Well, I’m glad to see you. You’re looking well.” Reaching up onto a shelf, she pulled down a container and measured out a few spoonfuls of white powder and dropped them into a big steel mixing bowl on the table. “How are you getting along? Working?”

“Yes. I’m back in the greenhouse every day again. I like it there, the crew is nice and the work is pleasant.” 

Stirring the contents of her bowl, Wendy was giving him and up and down look and then pointed a goopy spoon at him. “You need to put some meat on your bones; you’re skinnier than John was when I first met him.”

Dave looked down at his middle and then up at Momma. “I’m working on it.” 

She put down the spoon and picked up a small plastic plate and went to the cooler. Opening it, she leaned in, disappeared from sight behind the door. When she stood up straight, there were two brownies and a pudding cup on the plate. She passed him the plate. “That’s for snack time, and dessert tonight.”

“But…” She picked up the spoon and pretended to scowl at him. He smiled and said, “Thanks.” He didn’t tell her, but he would probably share the plate with David later, his boss had been really kind and friendly since he had returned to work. 

“Wait,” she said, taking the plate back from him and returning to the cooler. When she came back, there were four brownies and a second pudding cup. She dropped a domed cover over the plate and gave it to him. “Now you can share with the botanist.”

Dave’s jaw dropped and he stared at her in amazement. “How did you know?”

“I’m a mother and I know everything, now, back to work with you.”

He nodded stupidly and turned to leave, but was stopped by Momma saying, “Ah, ah, ah!” He looked to see her standing expectantly, tapping her cheek with one finger. He circled the table and kissed her cheek and she smiled. “That’s better.” 

Four brownies was still too many. He stared at the covered plate and then checked his watch. He had time before he was due back. He went to the transporter and pressed the indicator for the Command Level. He nodded to the marines on guard duty and went up the main staircase, circling around to John’s office. He knocked on the open door frame.

“Hey stranger!” John called and spied the plate in Dave’s hands. “You’ve been to the kitchen; you’ve seen the cookie lady.”

“And returned victorious to share the spoils. Want a brownie?” He held out the plate when John made grabby hands and nodded enthusiastically. He took a brownie and bit into it with relish.

“That hits the spot. You on break?”

“On my way back now.”

John devoured the brownie in three bites, licking his lips. “We’re taking folding chairs to the park for Walk-In Theater tonight, you feel like coming? I think they’re showing _Creature from the Black Lagoon_ and _Godzilla Meets Mothra._ ”

These were the types of things Janelle always said no to. He took great pleasure in saying, “Hell yeah!”

When he saw Kate at the movie, he waved to her and she came over and chatted for a few minutes before the film started on the big white screen that had been hung from a balcony on the city wall. Dave had brought a beach towel that Janelle had inexplicably packed when they evacuated. David and Evan came too, and spread a blanket on the grass near John and Cam’s chairs, David put the baby on the blanket and stretched out next to her while Lorne set up a folding chair beside John.

After the movie ended, he sat and chatted with everyone for a while before Evan and Cam started to yawn and needed to head to bed. Dave helped the Lornes carry their gear and then went home. 

He dropped Janelle’s towel on the sofa and looked around. Maybe he would ask about new quarters. He could trade a lot of the stuff he had to get ‘new to him’ stuff, without the memories of Janelle attached. He wondered if that was too big a step. He thought about it as he showered and readied for bed. 

As he drifted off to sleep, he decided that today had been a good day. He had not been angry at all and he had taken a few steps out of his shell and been social. Dave smiled, at tomorrow’s session with Kate; he would have a lot to talk about.

~*~

  


The passage of time meant nothing. It was peaceful, bobbing around in the null, being fuzzy and disconnected. Eventually though, a stubborn sense of self was reasserted and he was no longer a nameless non-entity existing in the in-between. It wasn’t even like sleep, because sleep was dark and here there was no sense of anything at all. Slowly, things began to be. He remembered himself, that he was something separate from the void that surrounded him.

Once there were things to pay attention to, his mind started to do so. Rodney couldn’t help it, he was wired that way. He slowly meandered towards the things that were there and started to examine them. Little by little, more things came to be, and there was more for him to explore.

He knew he wasn’t entirely awake, but he didn’t have the energy to be upset about it. The only things driving him now were curiosity and boredom. He drifted along the pathways that had come into his reach. Pathways led to other pathways. He wove his way in and out and through, observing but not doing any more than that.

In a dreamlike state, he slowly learned to navigate the different paths. He absorbed the machine language as it was taught to him, it became part of him, he no longer had to think of it as something separate. He came to understand in a way he never had before. He became part of the city.

Time had no meaning here. He might have been doing this dance with the pathways for minutes or it might have been years. Bits of outside started to drift in through the pathways. Data, enormous amounts of data came in. He did not pay it much mind at first, but then he grew restless and bored and he started to sift through it to occupy and entertain himself.

Separate and apart, he lacked a true emotional connection to this data. Some streams of it seemed to be interconnected. The city did not see what Rodney saw, could not make the same connections and jumps from the various streams of data that Rodney could. The city did not analyze in the same manner Rodney did. He began to sort the data, filtering it to bits and pieces that were of interest to him.

And thus he spent his time in the nothing.

~*~

  


It was time to tell Nate. Jason had held off as long as possible, but Nate was almost back to normal. He would be going back on duty soon, rejoining his Gate team. Keeping the secret of the pregnancy from him had become a stressful burden.

He made dinner, pasta and sauce that Nate liked, and had it waiting when his partner came in after his reauthorization test at the range. 

“Everything go okay?”

“Many targets were destroyed and I am cleared for duty again. Mmmm, dinner smells good.” Nate walked over and kissed his cheek, snatching a slice of bread and nibbling on it as Jason finished setting the table.

“When do you go back to work?”

Nate grinned as he sat down. “Wednesday. We’re not scheduled to go offworld until next week though. Cadman decided to keep Greer on the team; we’re going to stay at four permanently.”

“That’s good; you get along with him, right?” Jason passed him the bowl of pasta and sat down. He had to tell him soon, Nate would catch on to how nervous he was pretty quickly.

Spooning sauce over his plate, Nate gave a small shrug. “He’s cool. Young, but he’s not too reckless. So, are you going to tell me what you’ve been keeping from me for weeks?”

Jason’s fork clattered onto his dish. He stared at his _panor’eten._ His jaw worked but nothing came out. 

“Come on, Jase, I’ve known you for half my life, I know when you’re hiding something. I figure the dinner is the buttering up part.”

“Uh, yeah. So. Uh.” Jason dropped his head into his hands and tugged on his hair. He stared at his lap and mumbled, “I’m carrying.”

“You’re…” Nate had heard him. “Jason? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I was waiting for you to get back on your feet and then I got all twisted up about it and I couldn’t figure out how to tell you.” He glanced up and saw that Nate was staring intently at him. He didn’t seem mad; Jason wasn’t picking up any anger through their bond. 

Nate reached over and grabbed his hand. “Are you okay? Healthy?”

“I’m fine. The baby is fine too.”  
“How long?” 

“Four months. I’m due in October.”

Nate squeezed his hand and then let go. He picked up his fork and took a bite of pasta, chewing it slowly as he stared at Jason.

“Are you mad?”

His _panor’eten_ shook his head quickly. “No. I’m worried about you.”

Jason forced himself to eat a few bites, though the food had no taste to him. He was still nervous about how Nate was going to be about this. His partner had made progress in the therapy sessions, but then Doctor Rollins had died so horribly and the sessions had stopped. 

“I think it’s going to be all right, Jason. I had a lot of time to think while I was in the infirmary. I’m not my father, I know I’m not. And then there’s you, you’re going to be there for our kid too.”

“Our kid,” Jason slowly let out the breath he had been holding. 

“You’re allowed to be happy, Jason. I know you want this. I’ll get there too.”

The next bite of pasta had a bit of flavor and Jason smiled at his partner.

~*~

  


“Thank you for coming to this hearing, Marshal, Captain Cadman,” the officious twit Woolsey said as Cadman sat beside Mitchell. Under the table, Mitchell clasped her hand and gave it an encouraging squeeze.

“Didn’t give us much choice, did you, Mister Woolpey?” Cam replied.

As usual, Woolsey ignored the deliberate mispronunciation of his name and carried straight into his diatribe of the day. It had not taken long for Sunny’s existence to come to the attention of the department managing the Orphan’s List, and from there on, the protests began about a single baseline woman having custody of an orphaned child began.

Cam sighed and listened. He had promised Cadman he would try to straighten this all out, but Woolsey excelled at working red tape, and he hated Cam Mitchell. Perhaps it might have been better if someone else had championed Cadman’s cause? Someone Woolsey didn’t have a personal vendetta against.

It was too late now, his name was attached to the requests and the paper trail. He was in it.

Cadman had a legal representative, a Sergeant Stanley, who was involved in the technical back and forth with Woolsey. Cam had come because he had promised Cadman he would, she needed someone at her side.

“She is a baseline human, the law is quite clear,” Woolsey said.

“Because she can’t reproduce, she is incapable of parenting?” Mitchell interrupted, having heard enough.

“The law is clear.”

Mitchell tapped his stylus. “The law was clear, to the lawmakers, thirty and forty years ago when they were set down. Circumstances have changed.”

“We agreed to abide by Earth law!” Woolsey blurted, slapping his papers and looking from Stanley to Mitchell and back. “The _Keri_ laws were meticulously drafted for the protection of our species!”

When this had come up, Cam had hoped perhaps it could be handled as a single case, but it seemed that Woolsey was intent on making this all about the _Keri_ laws. He sighed; this was not what he had intended to fight about at all when he’d promised to help Laura.

Trying one last time to bring it back to Cadman, Stanley said, “Surely we can examine the facts of the case before us and not bring decades of legalities into it?”

“The law is the law!” Woolsey thumped a hand on his files.

Cam did a little thumping of his own, slamming his hand down on the table in front of him, drawing the attention of everyone in the room. He was satisfied when Woolsey jumped a little. “Mister Wooly, I am going to give you one more chance to be reasonable and hear out what Sergeant Stanley is trying to say.”

“I have read the facts of the case. The facts are the facts and the law is the law,” Woolsey said and jutted his jaw out stubbornly.

Keeping his voice very calm and cold, Cam glared at Woolsey. “Then I will remind you of a fact that you seem to have forgotten. Atlantis is currently under martial law. As such, Mister Woolsey, you have no legal jurisdiction in my city. If the next words out of your mouth are not “Please continue Sergeant Stanley,” I will dissolve the civilian legal board as well as the civilian security department and put armed soldiers back on patrol of my city, is that understood?”

Woolsey gaped for a moment and then nodded stiffly. He sank slowly to the edge of his chair and shuffled his papers nervously. “Please continue, Sergeant Stanley.”

Beside him, Cadman had the sense to keep her head down, but Cam caught a glimpse of her smile as Sergeant Stanley finally had a chance to speak on the matter of Sunny’s mental state and share the testimony of the doctors that had examined the child. She reached over and squeezed his hand.

On the table, Cam’s datapad beeped loudly at him, an odd alert sound that was not like any he had programmed it to make. He glanced down and saw a blinking message alert, highlighted in red. Funny, he didn’t remember the icons on his tablet doing that before. He tapped the icon and a plain white screen came up.

_Don’t you dare let Woolsey get his hands on that kid._

_And who might you be?_ Cam typed back, wondering who might be pranking him. It could be John, trying to distract him.

 _…_

_I don’t respond well to anonymous threats._

_It’s McKay._

Cam blinked and sat up a little straighter in his seat and pulled his datapad a bit closer to his chest _Bullshit. McKay’s in a coma. I’m not amused John, or is this Radek?_ This didn’t seem like either John or Zelenka’s sense of humor though. What was going on here?

_Oh please, it’s really me, Mitchell._

_And how are you typing your end of the conversation, Rodney, since your fingers are currently in the infirmary?_

_I don’t know. I’ve been bouncing around the system trying to figure out what’s what for a while. How long have I been in a coma?_

_2 months. What do you mean bouncing around the system?_ This was getting too weird, and weird in Pegasus was usually not good.

_I think I’m inside the Atlantis mainframe, or part of me is, anyway._

Crap. Ordinarily, he’d say it was ridiculous, but McKay had been interfaced with the damned chair when he’d been ‘zapped’ so maybe it was true. _Say I believe you, just so that we can carry on the conversation, why haven’t you said anything to anyone until now, McKay?_

 _It’s been weird, okay? I’m only just getting my shit together. Someone plugged blood tests in to identify against the Earth database and a flag caught my attention and I went to investigate and the trail of data led me to Woolsey and his case against Laura. And so I’m here, now._

Cam looked over at Cadman and smiled. It seemed McKay might be a romantic at heart. How in the hell were they going to get him out of the mainframe and back into his body? _What difference could the fate of one orphan mean to you, Rodney?_

 _She’s my sister Jeannie’s kid. Her name isn’t Sunny, it’s Madison, Madison Miller, go ahead and ask her yourself._

No one had mentioned that in all the interviews with the people they had brought in with Hammond and Mark Carter. Cam looked up as Sgt Stanley seemed to be wrapping his presentation. _Are you certain she’s your niece, McKay?_

 _I’m looking at the DNA, hers and mine, she’s my kin. If you don’t trust me, have Carson do a comparison, it’s his voodoo science, after all, I’m just analyzing data._

_Do not go away again. I have to deal with Woolsey, but then we have to get you situated._

_Not going anywhere._

Cam cleared his throat and raised his hand when Stanley finished. “I have new evidence, the child cannot be placed with anyone permanently, she has living kin in the city.” Cadman’s face fell at his words and he patted her shoulder reassuringly.

“Well why didn’t someone say something before now?” Woolsey snapped.

Cam lifted his datapad and waggled it, “New evidence.”

“She has a relative?” Sergeant Stanley called from across the room.

“DNA tests show that she’s the niece of Rodney McKay, the daughter of his sister. Doctor McKay is currently in the infirmary in a coma, until he regains consciousness and can determine the best situation for the child, nothing permanent can be decided. I’m therefore ordering that the child remain in the custody of Captain Cadman until further notice, in accordance with the recommendations of the staff physiatrist, Doctor Heightmeyer.”

Sergeant Stanley nodded, Woolsey sat there with his mouth gaping like a fish and Cadman looked stunned. Cam gathered his datapad and pushed himself awkwardly to his feet. Laura leapt up to help him, walking with him into the corridor. After Woolsey had brushed past them, she squeezed his arm. “Thank you sir! I’m sorry I doubted you. Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me, thank your boyfriend.” He waved the datapad at her. “It seems McKay is still with us. We need to go to the infirmary.” He handed the pad to Laura. As she scanned through the electronic conversation, her eyes went wide. She typed as they walked towards the infirmary.

_Rodney, I am going to kill you! Or kiss you. What took you so long? Get back in your body, you idiot!_

_I assume I’m no longer talking with Mitchell?_

_No, it’s Laura. Are you all right?_

_Yeah, I think so, still brilliant. Less solid though. Are they taking good care of my body?_

_Idiot. Yes, but the longer you’re out of it, the more chances something will go wrong. How do we get you back in one piece?_

_I’m not sure I’m ready to do that. There is so much to learn this way! Just think of the possibilities. True sentience in a machine!_

_Rodney, no. Look, your body needs you inside it. This is not healthy. Beckett is making noise about pneumonia and organ failure and malnutrition and muscle deterioration. You’ve had your electronic adventure, now help me get you back where you belong._

Cadman looked away from the pad as they entered the transporter. Cam saw concern in her eyes. “He’s being stubborn; he says he’s not ready to be reintegrated again. How do we get him back if he runs and hides from us?”

“We’ll get him back.” Cam said, though he wasn’t exactly sure how they were going to accomplish that. It seemed like the proper thing to say though.

 

 **July**  
“How about Atticus?”

“David, we are not raising a future gladiator,” Evan snapped from where he was changing Chloe’s diaper after her evening bottle. How could such a tiny little person that only drinks milk make such a horrendously smelly pile of poop? “You, missy, are a stinkapotamus,” he told his daughter, and tickled her tummy.

She giggled, burbled wetly and kicked her feet in infantile abandon, not caring a bit that she had an issue with odor.

David snorted and looked up from the computer and gave Evan a look. “That is not a gladiator name. Atticus Finch from _To Kill a Mockingbird._ I want a good strong name from literature.” 

“You got this bee in your bonnet after talking to Jonas Quinn, didn’t you?”

“Well why not? I think it’s a great idea. How about Silas?”

Scooping up Chloe, Evan debated whether the literary name kick was a better or worse trend that the plant name kick. Probably better, since they had to find a name for at least one boy. Thus far, the second twin had been camera and scanner shy and they had been unable to determine the sex. He settled down on the sofa and arranged Chloe on his knees so that she was looking up at him. He held her hands and made faces to amuse her. “It sounds mean. How about Tom, like Tom Sawyer?”

“That’s the one Allie and Jonas decided on. “Brick… no, Phileas?”

“What’s that from?” Evan nibbled on Chloe’s bare toes, which made her squeal with laughter. 

“Phileas Fogg, Around the World in Eighty Days.”

“I prefer Phineas, we could call him Finn.” The face David made told him the suggestion was not meeting with approval. He shrugged. If David thought this out the way he had come up with Chloe’s name, he would be batting around names and changing his mind right up until the babies made their appearance and the doctor asked what name to put in the city’s records. “How about Castiel?”

“Where’s that from?”

“I dunno, I just heard it somewhere.”

David pointed a warning finger at him; he was in serious research mode and was not having any of Evan’s nonsense tonight. “Ashley?”

“For a girl, maybe. I don’t like it for a boy, I know it came from _Gone with the Wind_ , but still. For a girl, okay.” David nodded and made a note on his list beside him on the table.

“Orlando?”

Chloe was trying to roll over, so Evan lifted her and put her on her tummy and lightly jounced his knees. She amused herself making a droning “uhhhnnnn mmuamaaan,” that vibrated with the movement of his knees. “Like Florida?”

“Shakespeare, never mind, if you thought it, so will other people.”

“Since we’re discussing names, Cam came to my office today to ask me something.”

Turning in his chair, David was all ears. “What was the question?”

“He wanted to know if I’d be okay with them naming their baby after me if it was a boy.”

“What did you say?”

“I was surprised. But I said I’d be honored. That was a good answer, right?”

David smiled and nodded. “I think it was. John asked me about it yesterday, I told him they should ask you.”

“That’ll be weird, having a little Evan running around.”

A thought occurred to them at the same time and they said together, “John!” David added it to their list. 

“How about Arthur?”

Evan tilted his head and then smiled. “Okay, that’s a cool book name. Don’t panic and all that.”

David shook his head and then dropped his face into his hands. “Not that Arthur. King Arthur.”

“Still cool with it. Aren’t we, Chloe? Do you want a baby brother Artie? Yeah? Chloe said yes to Artie.”

“Chloe said ‘pppffttt gaaaa’ which is the same thing she says when you ask if she wants a bottle or if she made a poopie. I don’t think her opinion counts yet.”

“We agreed on Rhys after your grandfather, so Arthur Rhys Lorne. One down, we need another name, Evan.”

Evan gathered the baby close and stood up. “No more decisions tonight, it is time for all good little botanists and baby girls to be in bed.”

“I’m not tired,” David protested, though he shut down his computer and followed Evan into the nursery. He kissed Chloe’s forehead when Evan leaned over with her and stroked her face. “Goodnight princess.”

Gurgling happily as Evan set her down in the crib; Chloe flailed her fist around until she got it into her mouth and then sucked on it. He switched on a music player that was beside the crib and classical music filled the nursery. 

David was quicker in the bathroom, so Evan usually let him go first. When he got to the bed, David was stretched out with his hands cupped behind his head. He looked at Evan and recited the list he must have been compiling when Evan was in the bathroom. “Beth, Jane, Guinevere, Emma, Dulcinea, Rowena or Lenore?”

“I like Ashley,” Evan said, as he awkwardly arranged himself on the bed. There was no comfortable position these days, though occasionally, he found one that was less cramped. 

“How about Tristan John?”

“That isn’t bad,” Evan said, yawning broadly. “Tristan John Lorne, I like it. I’ll bet you a week’s diaper duty that Sheppard is calling him TJ within a week,” Evan said with a smile. 

“That is a sucker’s bet, so no. Goodnight Evan.” 

Evan reached over and grabbed David’s hand, giving it a squeeze. “Night love.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter is completely and totally gratuitous sex because Cam was bored.
> 
> Skipping to Chapter 20 will miss you nothing.


	19. An Interlude of Pron!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is rated NC-17
> 
> It's John/Cam naughty bits
> 
> This is completely gratuitous pron and serves no purpose and was written because Cam was bored.

John slid onto the chair across from his _panor’eten_ and pushed the tray he had brought to him. “I didn’t bother with the bean salad.”

“Thanks, I’d be up all night again,” Cameron picked up his fork and started eating his macaroni. 

“I’m a selfish bastard, I wasn’t thinking of you at all, buddy.” 

Cameron ignored him and continued eating his dinner. His appetite was not what it had been however, and he finished his plate before John was halfway through. He sat back in his chair and stared around the nearly empty mess hall. “It’s too quiet.”

John’s fork clattered to his plate and he glared across the table at him. “Why’d you say that? Why did you have to say that?”

“It is! There’s nothing going on. I’m bored.”

“I want a divorce,” John snapped as he stared at Cameron. 

“No such thing anymore.”

Pointing a finger at his partner John said, “You are a jinx. You can’t go around saying things like that. Especially in your condition!”

“What does my condition have to do with the fact that things have been eerily quiet and calm around here for weeks?”

Shaking his head in disbelief, John muttered, “You just don’t get it. Are you trying to bring the wrath of God down on our heads? Change the subject, Cameron, let’s talk about something else.”

Deliberately timing his words, Cam leaned forward as John took a sip of his coffee and said provocatively, “I’m horny as hell.” He laughed when John coughed and turned red.

“I give up. You’re just in a mood tonight,” John set his coffee cup down, crossed his arms and stared at his grinning _panor’eten_. “What can I possibly do to entertain you?”

“You could take me home and take care of this raging hard on,” Cam suggested, waggling his eyebrows. 

“Stop that. Why all of a sudden? You’ve been ‘hands off, don’t touch me’ for weeks.”

Cam shrugged. “I dunno. I feel better and I want it. Now.”

Huffing with impatience, John stood up and grabbed their trays to dump them in the recycler. “Fine, come on.”

“Really?”

John rolled his eyes, “Yes, really, come on.”

When they got to their quarters, Cam shoved John towards the sofa. His _keri_ stumbled but went along with the nudging. “How do you want to do this?” John asked.

Impatiently, Cam shoved on his shoulder, forcing him down to the floor. “Cock, mouth, suck, now.”

Chuckling, John untied the drawstring of Cam’s sweatpants and tugged them and his boxers down in one swoop. He glanced up and asked, “Are you going to be all right standing?”

“Get on with it, I’m fine!” Cam grabbed his hair and tugged. 

“Pushy.” He wrapped a hand around Cam’s cock and began to stroke him gently. 

Cameron groaned loudly and thrust his hips forward. “Mouth, John, I want your mouth on me.”

“I was getting to it. It’s been a while, I was reacquainting myself with my friend here,” John smirked up at him and then leaned in and took the head of Cam’s cock into his mouth. Ordinarily, John liked to watch Cam’s face when he did this, but there was his extended belly to contend with now and he couldn’t see beyond it. John closed his eyes and concentrated on the feel of Cam’s hand in his hair, petting and tugging, encouraging him as he sucked and stroked.

Holding on to Cam’s thighs for balance, John lost himself in pleasuring his _panor’eten._ Growing heated, John shifted position so that he had one arm around Cam’s thigh and then reached down to undo his BDUs, pulling himself out and stroking. 

When Cam realized what John was doing, he groaned and thrust forward roughly, spurting into John’s mouth without warning. “Sorry, sorry. I didn’t realize I was that close to the edge,” Cam apologized as John choked and coughed. 

“It’s all right. You feel better now, you big bully?”

Cam frowned as he sat on the sofa. “Did I really bully you into it?”

“Nah. I kinda liked it, actually. We should do that again.”

Blinking in surprise, Cam shook his head. “I never know with you, just when I think I know everything about you, you come out with something new.”

“You complained you were bored.”

John climbed up onto the couch beside him and Cam reached over to take him in hand. “Let me?” John nodded and closed his eyes, tipping his head back against the cushion. He had not been in the same frantic state as Cam and he enjoyed the slow, leisurely handling as Cam twisted his hand and jerked him in an almost casual manner. 

“Come for me?” Cam whispered in his ear as John tensed slightly and thrust up a few times. 

“Yeah,” John rasped and after another minute, he did. “Well, this was certainly not how I anticipated spending the evening.”

“Me neither, but it was nice. I missed this.” Cam kissed John’s cheek, and John turned to catch his lips and kiss him more fully. “I miss you.”

John stroked his cheek and nodded in agreement. “Not too much longer, then we’ll get back to normal.” He rubbed a hand across Cam’s belly and then slid off the sofa, intending to hit the shower. 

“Wait, we were normal? How did I miss that? When were we normal, John?” Cam called as he struggled to get off the couch.


	20. Baby Summer

**July 24**  
Jonas usually met Allie for lunch in the mess hall, unless it was the Biology department’s lunch day like today. Feeling bulky and fat and out of sorts, Allie dropped some food onto her tray and joined her co-workers. She sat beside Doctor Havstram and idly picked at the plastic wrap on her sandwich.

“Are you feeling all right, Allie, you look a little flushed, dear.” Shana Ingston asked.

Allie shrugged. “Just tired. It’s one of those days I guess.” The kindly researcher patted Allie’s hand and resumed her conversation with Doctor Havstram.

She felt off, now that she thought about it. Doctor Fraiser had teased her recently for having such a healthy, textbook pregnancy. Allie had not had any of the usual gripes and complaints that most of the expectant patients were going to the infirmary about. But today she felt weird.

After attempting to follow the conversation and failing, and nibbling at her sandwich before wrapping it up to try later, she decided that a nap might be a better use of her meal break today. She excused herself after declaring her intention and headed towards her quarters.

After exiting the transporter, she felt something shift in her abdomen and then a really painful cramp hit her. It took a few moments for it to register that she might possibly be in labor, and a few more to remember what she was supposed to do. She turned around and went back into the transporter. When she got out at the infirmary level, she tried to be calm as she walked in. Spotting Keiko, she smiled and waddled over towards the nurse. 

“Hi, I feel weird and I think I might have just had a contraction,” she said, and then Keiko took over and everything that happened after became a blur. She was whisked to a curtained area, examined, dressed in a gown, put on a gurney and hooked up to monitors, all before Jonas heard that she was in the infirmary from his coworkers. 

Jonas appeared at her side, looking very nervous as he took in all the monitors and wires. In an attempt to distract either Allie or himself, he casually mentioned, “Back home on Langara, people would be scandalized that we’re having a baby and aren’t married.”

Wincing as the nurse inserted an IV into the back of her hand, Allie reminded him, “We don’t do weddings anymore. We’re a little odd, honey, most people don’t have children outside the bond. It happens, but not too often.”

“You know that if there was a way to make this legal and permanent, that I would ask you to be mine in a heartbeat, don’t you Allie?”

Allie patted his hand and noticed that it was trembling so she clasped it and squeezed reassuringly. “I know, I feel the same way. The law might change someday and then we can get bonded or joined or married properly.”

He stayed with her through the embarrassment of her water breaking and the hours of contractions that followed, refusing to leave. They argued over names a bit more to pass the time. Jonas really wanted to choose a name from Earth literature, and Allie disagreed, she wanted to honor his culture too. When Jonas had been uncooperative on the subject, Allie had gone to their Langaran friends Tenil and Roge and gotten a list of Langaran names from them. Eventually, after another round of contractions that came very quickly after the previous round, and still with no names chosen, they came to an agreement that if the baby was a boy, Jonas would have his choice and Allie would be able to use the Langaran name she liked for a daughter. They had declined the doctor’s offer to tell them the sex of the baby, preferring the anticipation of the birth day.

Ordinarily, partners were not permitted to stay in the room during the actual birth. It was a safety concern for the medical staff more than anything else. _Panor_ tended to get agitated and aggressive during a birth and it had become common practice to ban everyone but the medical staff from the room. But Jonas was not _panor_ and the customs of his people were different. He stubbornly refused to leave when Doctor Fraiser tried to bump him out. Taking a place near Allie’s shoulder, he raised her up and held her through the last few contractions as she struggled to push their child out into the world. 

Allie went limp in his arms as soon as the baby was out. He held her awkwardly and went up on his toes, trying to see the crying baby as Doctor Fraiser carefully placed it on Allie’s belly. “It’s a boy, healthy lungs” she told them, and Jonas whooped in delight and hugged Allie close. As the baby turned his face from side to side rubbing his nose against her tummy, Allie laughed and stroked the tiny head with a shaking hand. 

“We have a boy,” she whispered in wonder as she stared at the baby, touching him hesitantly with her fingertips.

The cord was cut and Doctor Fraiser handed the baby off to Tim. Allie tensed up through the afterbirth contractions and Jonas held her and watched the nurses clean and check the baby over. When Doctor Fraiser had finished with Allie, she went over and did her own check of the baby. 

Exhausted, Allie had fallen asleep and Jonas had settled her against the pillow. Keiko had promised a sponge bath and fresh linens in a few minutes, so Jonas let her doze before she had to be moved. 

The baby had been wrapped in a blanket and Doctor Fraiser smiled as she brought him over to Jonas. “Hold your arm up, rest him along it, make sure you always support his neck.” She placed the swaddled bundle into his arms and stepped back. “Congratulations.”

He looked down at the tiny person he held and felt overwhelmed by the different emotions he felt. This was his son, he and Allie had made this little person. The baby yawned and then opened his eyes and looked straight up at him. In that moment, Jonas knew that he would do anything for this little one. 

“I heard you discussing names,” Janet said.

“Arguing, you mean,” Allie said. The nurses had woken her as they brought over a clean bed and started getting Allie washed up. “Jonas won.” 

He smirked at Allie. “I won fair and square. That’s how you say it, right?”

“Fair and square love, yes.”

“His name is Thomas Kieren Quinn,” Jonas told Janet.

The Doctor tapped her finger on her lower lip thoughtfully, “You told me you liked Tom Sawyer, where is Kieren from?” 

Allie was beaming as she said, “Kieren was Jonas’ mentor in Kelowna. You faked me out!” she leaned past Keiko and pointed an accusatory finger at Jonas.

“A little. It kept you from thinking about the contractions, didn’t it?”

“You are a sneaky man, Jonas Quinn.”

He looked down at the baby in his arms. “Mommy says I’m sneaky Tommy, is Daddy sneaky?” The baby, predictably, did not answer the question. Jonas lifted him slightly up and bent to kiss his forehead. 

When the nurses got Allie settled on the clean bed, Jonas walked over and gave the baby to her. She immediately unwrapped the blanket to check him over. When she was satisfied that he was perfect, she swaddled him up again and cuddled him close as the nurses pushed the bed towards a curtained off area. 

As soon as the nurses left them alone, Allie shifted to one side and patted the mattress. Climbing up beside her, Jonas draped an arm over her shoulders and pulled her close, dropping a kiss on top of her head. “The baby is here.”

“Now I’m scared,” Allie confessed as she lifted one of Tommy’s tiny fists between two fingers. 

“Of this little guy? There’s two of us, I think we can handle him.” 

“You might have to eat those words one day, Quinn.”

Jonas stroked a finger across the baby’s cheek and told him, “Bring it on, little man.”

 

 **August 8**  
“Radek, I don’t care what you have to take offline! I cannot have McKay running amok in the city’s AI, I need him out here. Flush him out of his electronic hidey hole,” Cam snapped into his radio as he hit the controls for the transporter and waddled inside. He was a week from his scheduled delivery date, and feeling very fat and extremely uncomfortable. He was also on his last nerve, between Woolsey and the civilian legal board, McKay refusing to come out of his electronic wonderland and the baby sitting on his bladder, he had no patience for anything. 

He jabbed a finger at the button and the door slid closed just as Radek replied, “As you wish, Marshal.”

Turning around to face the door, Cam gasped and bent double as he felt a sharp pain in his abdomen. Something was very wrong, this was a bad pain. Hunched over, holding his belly, he turned back to the transporter control and reached towards the indicator for the infirmary level. Just as he tapped it, the entire panel went dark and the lights in the transporter went out. 

“Not good. So not good!” he hissed and tapped his radio. “Engineering! What’s going on with the teleporters?”

Vic Elansee answered, “Marshal? Doctor Zelenka took the system offline; he said he cleared it with you.”

“Some warning would have been appropriate; I’m in a transporter!” He blindly felt around the wall but there did not seem to be a control to open it from the inside. “Elansee, where is the manual control to open the transporter door?”

The engineer cleared his throat, “Uhm, there isn’t one, sir”

“There isn’t one?”

“No sir, none that we have found.”

“Damn, damn, damn. Tell Radek to turn the transporters back on, Elansee.” He clicked the radio over to his private channel, and his hail came out as a pained shout, “JOHN!”

“Cameron, where are you? Dammit, what’s going on, why are you in pain, what’s happening?” his _keri_ was now in a panic, picking stuff up through their bond.

“I’m stuck in a transporter. Ow, damn, cramps, bad ones. Where are you? I need you to get me out of here. Something is wrong; this hurts too much, too fast.”

He heard through the com that John was moving around, from the sound of it he was in Gate Control. “What transporter are you in?”

“I got in by the West Pier and was going to the Mess Hall.”

“Did you feel it engage?” John was breathing heavily. Cam could hear a lot of noise in the background.

Cam leaned against the wall and slowly slid down and sat on the floor. “Yeah, I think so. I might be by the Mess Hall. I didn’t get out; I was going to go to the infirmary when I felt the cramps start.”

There was a rustling and Beckett’s voice came on, he must be using John’s radio. “Cameron, where are the pains, exactly?”

“Front, towards the left side, I guess if I drew a line, pretty even with my belly button,” he told the doctor. This was getting scary. They didn’t know exactly where he was. How could they get to him if they couldn’t find him. “Are the sensors working?”

Beckett still had John’s radio; he could hear John’s voice in the background. He could sense through the bond that his _keri_ was highly agitated. “Can you describe the pains?”

“Burning, knifelike. Hard, fast then they fade a bit.” He heard Beckett swearing under his breath at the answer. Not good. “CB?”

“We need to get you out of there, lad. John is working on it. Be calm. Are you sitting?”

Another pain. He gasped and hissed, “Yes. On the floor, in the dark, alone. I want to talk to John.”

He heard Beckett call John’s name and a few moments later his voice came through. “Cameron, how are you holding up?’

“I think I’m in labor. Carson didn’t say so, but I think I felt something tear, John.”

That set John off on a torrent of curses in both English and Satedan, learned from Ronon and wielded with ferocity at the poor tech in the Gate Room that was trying to get the city’s systems back online. “We’re hurrying, Cameron.”

“I’m scared,” he whispered. 

“Me too. Look, I’m going to the Chair Room; I might be able to kick this electronic bitch in the ass from there. And when I get my hands on Rodney, I’m gonna let him have it too. I have marines and a med team on the way to the transporter by the Mess Hall; they’re going to try to force the door there. Sit still, close your eyes and try to be as calm as you possibly can.”

He tilted his head back and closed his eyes. “Don’t turn off your radio, don’t leave me alone.”

“I won’t, you’re never alone, I’m always with you, _panor,_ ” John replied. Cam could hear John’s breath as he ran, more labored as he took the several levels of stairs to get down to the level where the Chair Room was. 

It took him a lot longer to get there since he had to run. “Are all the electrical systems out?” Cam asked. 

“No, just some of them. I’m there now, hopefully the Chair works. I might go quiet, but I’m still here.”

“I can hear you.” He could hear John breathing and the quiet swish of the Chair activating and moving. Apparently it had power. 

“Okay, I’m in. Chuck, when I say to, shut down the SGO interfaces to electrical systems three and four.”

“Yes Commander,” Cam heard the tech say. John had apparently dragged Chuck along with him from Gate Control. That was good, he hated when John was in the Chair Room by himself. 

“Now Chuck. Good. Now on my mark, shut off system eight. Rodney? What the hell man? Do you know what a major clusterfuck your little adventure is causing? Stop fighting it and get the hell out of the AI. Chuck shut it off. I don’t care what modifications you’re making, Rodney, my _panor_ is fifteen minutes into labor, and if something happens to him or our baby, I will never, ever forgive you.”

The tone in John’s voice was one Cam had never heard before, it unsettled him while at the same time comforted him, John was doing everything he could to get him out of here, including fighting with his erstwhile best friend. 

“Then stop fighting us and help, Rodney!” John snapped. Cam thought it was like eavesdropping on a phone call. “He got into the transporter on the West Pier, heading for the Mess Hall. I don’t need the entire system restored, you and Radek can fight this out later, I just want Cameron out of that fucking transporter!”

Cam whimpered as another pain hit him, and John apparently heard it because he started cursing in Satedean again. 

There was a noise at the door, a scraping sound. “John, I think the marines are here!”

“Thank God. That means you are near the Mess Hall. Hang on, it shouldn’t take too long, we’ll have you out.”

Another pain ripped through him, followed quickly by several more. It was too much to take; he closed his eyes and felt himself sliding over, but he couldn’t stop.

~*~

  


The half hour when Cameron was out of his reach was probably the worst half hour he had lived through since the time the Genii had stolen his _panor’eten_ and Lorne. And then McKay had finally deigned to talk to him after weeks of trying to communicate with him to no avail and had proceeded to argue with him incessantly. By the time he got to the infirmary, Cameron had already been taken to surgery and he had been forced to wait impatiently for word about his condition.

Luckily, Doctor Lam had come out and updated him. They had been in time there had been no rupture though it had been close. Cameron was doing well; they were working on getting the baby out. 

His attention was drawn to the bed where Rodney was, there was an uproar going on there as McKay’s mind was forcibly reintegrated with his body using a complicated setup of Ancient and SGO devices that Cadman had worked with Engineering to configure. He heard Radek’s voice over the noise and decided to stay out of it for now. He went to the surgical waiting area where he could see down into the operating room. 

He saw them take the baby out, Doctor Fraiser rushing off to a corner with a team of nurses to take care of her. The Ancient Plexiglas was soundproof, so he could not hear anything, but it looked to John as if the baby had been crying, her mouth had been open and she had been waving her arms. That was a good sign, he figured. 

Unable to watch the surgery, he went back to the main infirmary and found Lorne, Parrish and Momma Mitchell waiting. Seeing Momma, John walked straight over to her and pulled her into his arms, holding tightly until his nervous trembling stopped. 

“Lam says he’s doing okay. I saw Janet take the baby.”

“Good, good. Everything is going to be fine, John.”

 

The good thing about Cam being asleep after the surgery was that John got to hoard the baby all to himself for a few hours. He had unwrapped her blankets as soon as they had brought her to him and checked her over, reassuring himself that she was all in one piece. He had refused to give her up, though he had allowed Momma to take a short turn holding her granddaughter. When Cam was wheeled into a curtained recovery area, John practically snatched the baby from Momma and followed, taking up a position in the chair beside the bed to wait.

He couldn’t stop staring at the tiny face that was peeping out of the blankets at him. She had opened her eyes briefly once or twice, but otherwise, she slept. Hearing a tiny snore, John laughed and looked over at Momma, who shared in his amusement. “Babies snore?”

She laughed, “They also fart, burp and make every other noise big people make!” 

He unfolded the blanket slightly and picked up one lax hand, lifting it with the tip of his index finger. “So tiny, look at how little these fingernails are! I don’t remember Torra being this small.”

“Teyla said you were terrified to hold Torra for the first few weeks. And Torra was bigger; she outweighed this little one by half her weight, according to Teyla.”

“I forgot about that. I was pretty nervous back then; Torra was the first baby I was ever around.”

Lauren, one of the nurses, came into the curtained area holding a cloth and a tiny baby bottle. “We have some formula warmed up if you want to try feeding her, Commander.”

Nodding, John took the bottle and touched the tip to the baby’s lips. “It might take her a little bit of time to latch on, but don’t worry,” Lauren advised. He worried anyway until the baby opened her mouth and accepted the nipple and began to suckle. 

The nurse watched for a little while and then fussed with Cameron’s blankets before leaving John and Wendy alone. 

When it seemed that she was not going to take any more of the milk, John set the bottle on the table beside the bed and wiped her lip with the soft cloth. “You need to burp her,” Momma reminded gently.

“I’ll break her; she’s barely bigger than my hand!” John exclaimed when Momma came over and took the baby and settled her against his shoulder and set his hand on her back.

“She’s more durable than you think. Just pat gently and listen for the burp.”

It seemed like the baby was never going to burp, he was beginning to think something was wrong when he heard the tiny belch. Relieved, he looked over to see Momma grinning at him. “You did your first feeding.”

“And Cameron missed it.”

“He needs the sleep; he would not have appreciated the sentiment in his condition. There will be plenty of other firsts for him to share.” John nodded at her words and awkwardly shifted the baby around so that she was once again cradled on his arm. She yawned, smacked her lips and closed her eyes, quickly falling asleep again. 

“Did you pick a name?” CB said from behind John, startling him, he had not heard his friend come in. 

“Don’t record it until Cameron has a chance to change his mind, but I think we’re pretty firm on Mackenzie Leigh.”

CB smiled as he crouched beside John and looked at the baby. “I approve. It’s lovely name for the wee lass.” He stroked her cheek and then leaned in to give her a kiss on the forehead. 

“How’s Rodney?” John asked, knowing that was what had kept CB busy all this time.

“Cranky, sore, but finally back where he belongs, the stubborn ass. He’s sleeping now. Laura left to get Sunny from her class and bring her up to see him.”

Relieved that the situation with McKay seemed to have been resolved, John looked over at Momma. “You should go get a cup of coffee or something; you’ve been here for hours, Momma.”

“I was just thinking that myself. Would you like a sandwich? I’ll bring one up for you.”  
He nodded and she kissed his cheek and the baby’s as she left to go to the kitchens. CB went along with her, claiming he was peckish.

John unwrapped the blankets and spent a good long while marveling at his daughter’s tiny toes and feet.

~*~

  


Familiar noises woke him, noises that he hated more than anything. The infirmary. Cam groaned. His hand went to his middle, which was numb. His belly was significantly flatter, though still swollen. “John?” He looked around, raising himself up on his elbows.

John was sprawled in the chair by the bed, smiling broadly at him. He had the baby in his arms. 

“Is everything okay?”

“She’s perfect. You’re pretty good too, but she’s perfect.” John climbed to his feet and edged over to press the button to raise the head of the bed slightly. “Say when,” he told Cam.

He winced and said, “When. No more.” John clicked the bed back slightly to where it was more comfortable and then very carefully leaned over to put the baby in Cam’s arms. 

She was sleeping, but opened her eyes and made a tiny squawk of protest at the interruption. “Hello,” Cam said “aren’t you beautiful?”

“Of course she is,” John said. 

“How long was I out?”

“About six hours. She’s eaten and had her first diaper change already. She has also visited with Grandma, Uncles Evan, David, Ronon and Carson and Aunt Teyla and Torra.” 

“My, my, my, aren’t you a social butterfly already, Miss Mackenzie?” Cam chuckled as he tried to undo the blankets to look her over. Seeing him having trouble, John leaned in and helped. 

“How are we going to trim those nails? The books say keep their nails trimmed, but look at how teeny tiny they are!” John said as Cam held one tiny hand up. 

Cam blinked and peered closely at her fingers. “Very carefully. Or we’ll bring her here and bribe a nurse to do it.”

“I like this plan. I approve. Nurse Bribing Fund, we need to start one.”

“I see my patient is awake. Making the acquaintance of your daughter, I see.” Janet said as she came over to the bedside. “How do you feel, Cam, any pain?”

“Nah, the drugs are keeping me numb. Did you see my baby?”

She nodded cheerfully. “I’m the one that pulled her out. She’s lovely. A little under the weight we had hoped for, but she’s healthy. You boys will just have to fatten her up.” Janet checked Cam’s pulse and blood pressure.

“You can enter her name in the city’s record as Mackenzie Leigh,” Cam told the doctor as she started to leave the bedside.

“I’ll do that; Carson was delighted with the name, by the way. He had aunts named Mackenzie and Leigh.”

Cam smiled and covered the baby with the blanket when she gave a little shiver. “Didn’t know that. Thank you for everything, Janet.”

“You’re welcome. I’m very happy everything has worked out. You have a beautiful daughter, gentlemen.” 

When Cam yawned for the third time, John clucked his tongue and stole the baby. “You need to sleep. I need to sleep. Mackenzie needs to sleep.” He leaned in and caught Cam’s lips in a kiss. 

Too tired to disagree, Cam mumbled, “Okay.” 

John walked over to the rolling crib beside the bed and carefully placed the baby on it. He patted her belly and then walked over to Cam again. He picked up a pillow that he had been resting on from the chair and laid it over Cam’s middle, arranging his _panor’eten’s_ limp arms over the pillow. “Here, I found it helped when I had the gunshot wounds. Sleep, love. I’ll see you in a few hours.”

Turning his head to watch John walk over and kiss the baby then leave, Cam stared at Mackenzie until his eyes closed and he drifted off to sleep.

~*~

  


The first thing Rodney did when he woke up back in his flesh and blood body was scream in agony because reintegration hurt like hell. The second thing he did was scowl at Laura for her part in coercing him to do it. Then he let her hug him and kiss him and fuss for a little while as he got accustomed to seeing out of his human eyes again and hearing without the benefit of the city’s security sensors.

The medical people had to poke and prod at him and Beckett and his scanner had to have a go and by the time he had been extensively questioned by Heightmeyer, he was exhausted and fell asleep.

When he woke, there was a tiny face propped on tiny fists on the edge of his bed staring intently at him. He thought about it for a moment and then said gruffly, “Let me guess, Sunny?”

She nodded and continued to stare. 

Rodney looked around but didn’t see Laura. He was alone with the miniature person. He stared back at her. He remembered his sister Jeannie at this age and Madison looked very much like her mother. “Where’s Laura?”

The girl pointed towards the infirmary doors and then mimed drinking.

“Coffee, I hope?”

Pleased that he had understood, she smiled and nodded in response. 

“How old are you, anyway?” She held up six fingers. She was a tiny thing. He remembered getting a birth announcement after Madison was born. It was the only communication he had from Jeannie in almost nine years. 

“Whatsamatter, cat got your tongue?” She shrugged at the question. Rodney heard footsteps and looked up to see Doctor Fraiser approaching. 

The doctor patted Madison’s shoulder as she moved past her to check the IV bag hanging on the pole beside the bed. “You’re looking more like yourself this morning, Rodney.” The doctor raised the head of the bed so that he was fully upright.

“I’m hungry.”

“Good sign, we’ll get you a tray.”

He looked up at her hopefully. “Coffee?”

“Half a cup.” It was better than none so he didn’t argue. 

Madison was digging in the pocket of the pink hooded sweatshirt she was wearing. She pulled out a foil wrapped power bar and held it out to Rodney. He wasn’t sure why the offering touched him, but it did. He accepted the bar and lifted it to read the label. “Mmm, oatmeal raisin. Thanks.” 

There was a datapad on the table beside the bed and she circled around behind the doctor and picked it up as Fraiser took Rodney’s blood pressure. She turned it on and tapped at the screen until she found what she was looking for. Then she walked around to the other side of the bed, kicked her sneakers off and climbed up onto it, sitting beside Rodney and putting the datapad on his lap.

He lifted it to see that she had pulled up _Winnie the Pooh_. “What? You want me to read this?” She nodded solemnly. “Don’t you ever say anything?” She shrugged again. Lifting the data pad he began to read, having nothing else to do at the moment and knowing from experience that so long as he had an IV line, no one was going to bring him a laptop. If he was lucky, the kid would forget to take the datapad with her when she left and he could hack the Atlantis mainframe with it.

~*~

  
Pooh Bear had gotten himself wedged in Rabbit’s house by the time Laura showed up with cookies and coffee (and one for him, bless her). One eyebrow went up as she took in the sight of Sunny cuddled against his side as he read Rabbit’s lines in a funny voice. “You’re going to spoil her, I don’t do funny voices.”

“You have to do the funny voices! That’s the whole point of reading out loud!” Rodney protested.

“I do not do funny voices.” Laura put his coffee onto the rolling table and pushed it close to the bed so that he could reach it. She set the plate of cookies beside the coffee.

When she looked up, Rodney and Sunny were staring at her with identical expressions of disbelief. Apparently, the rules were different in their world. She had a lot to learn about parenthood.

“Fine! I’ll learn to do funny voices,” she capitulated and they seemed mollified and Rodney continued reading. She was surprised that he was doing it. She hadn’t been sure how he would react to Sunny, but apparently, the girl had charmed him the same way she had charmed Laura. Relieved, Laura dropped into the chair beside the bed. Rodney’s voice lulled her and she tilted her head back and let it wash over her, happy to be hearing him again after months of simply staring at his comatose body.

He was back. 

“How about we save the rest of this for later, kid?” Rodney said in his normal speaking voice, which jarred Laura out of the trance she’d fallen into. Sunny didn’t seem to mind stopping, in fact, she closed her eyes and snuggled closer to Rodney as he placed the datapad on the table. Soon she was asleep.

“She doesn’t sleep much, please don’t wake her, Rodney,” Laura said as he looked down when Sunny let out a tiny snore.

“Why?”

Sipping her coffee, she wondered how much Rodney knew and did not know about what had gone on in the city recently. “Nightmares. You know about her parents?”

“Not really, a lot of the facts I was processing when I was in the AI are fading. I’m guessing Jeannie didn’t make it.”

“No. She was trying to protect Sunny and she was killed. They would have killed her too, but Doctor Jackson got in the way and he died instead.”

Shaking his head at that news, Rodney glanced down at Sunny sadly. “She’s the only family I have left.”

“I’m not giving her up,” Laura blurted, though that was in no way what she had intended to say. 

“Well who said you had to?”

“Woolsey is making a stink.”

Rodney pulled a face. “Screw Woolsey. Do you want to keep her?” Nodding desperately, Laura looked over at Sunny. “Then we’ll keep her. I’m her only blood relative, Woolsey can go f…”

“Hello Rodney,” Sheppard drawled. Neither of them had heard him sneak up on them. 

“I don’t know if I should be mad at you or not.”

Sheppard merely smirked. “Right back at you. How you feeling, buddy?”

“A little ragged around the edges, but otherwise okay. How’s your husband?” 

Sheppard ignored the antiquated word, as he usually did when Rodney used it to refer to Cameron. “Good. Sleeping. Not pregnant anymore.”

That got Laura’s attention. “Really? Is the baby here?”

“Came yesterday. You guys were a little preoccupied.”

When Sheppard didn’t elaborate, Rodney waved a hand in a rolling motion. “And?”

“A girl. Mackenzie Leigh, she and Cameron are both doing well. Thank you for asking. So, did I hear correctly? You’re going to keep Sunny?”

“Madison. Yes.”

Sheppard’s grin widened. “So, you’re gonna join the dad club with the rest of us?” 

That provoked a startled look from McKay. He looked down at the sleeping child and then at Laura, who held her breath, waiting to see how he would react as what he had agreed to sank in fully.

“She’s my niece. I can’t let someone else raise her.” He was keeping his voice low, so he didn’t wake the girl.

“Good answer, Rodney, there’s hope for you yet. Cameron’s waking up, I’ll see you later.” As Sheppard left, Rodney yawned and stretched his arms over his head.

“You aren’t bothered by the idea of being an instant parent?” Laura asked.

He shrugged and Laura realized why Sunny’s frequent, tiny shrugs looked so familiar. “You’ve been handling it for months and still want to do it, so I’m in too.”

Climbing out of her chair, she walked over and leaned down to kiss him full on the mouth. “I love you. Remind me of today the next time I get mad at you, okay?”

“Will do. If I babysit for a little while, will you get me another cup of coffee?”

She wrinkled her nose at him and pinched his cheek. “It’s hardly babysitting if she’s asleep and there’s a whole medical staff running around here.”

“I’ll make sure no one wakes her up. Nurses like to do that around here, you know.” 

“Good enough, I’ll be back in a little while. I’m going to swing past the nursery and see if I can peek at the Mitchell’s baby.” She kissed Rodney’s cheek, stroked Sunny’s head and walked away. When she glanced back, she saw that Rodney was staring down at the child sleeping beside him with an almost affectionate expression.

Maybe this would work out; maybe she could have it all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 21 is the last of the naughty bits, which you can skip if you like. 
> 
> It's John/Cam


	21. Last of the Pron!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is rated NC-17
> 
> It's a last little gratuitous pron.
> 
> John/Cam naughty bit.
> 
> You miss nothing by skipping to Chapter 22

**September**  
“Six weeks are up today,” John whispered in Cameron’s ear. His _panor’eten_ groaned and rolled closer to him, burying his face in the pillow. Blowing on Cameron’s neck, John started kissing along his throat to his collarbone. He worked his way back up and started nibbling Cameron’s ear. “Sex, baby, c’mon.”

“You’re waking me up for sex?” he mumbled. 

John ran his hands over Cameron’s side and hip. “Yup.”

“The baby will be up looking for a bottle soon.”

Leaning in to kiss along Cameron’s jaw, John mumbled, “I already fed her and changed her diaper and she’s back down for at least another two hours.”

Laughing low in his throat, Cameron shifted and wrapped an arm around John, pulling him close. “You planned this?”

“Of… course… I… did,” John interspaced with kisses as he wriggled against Cameron’s body. “Miss you. Want you.”

“How do you want me?” Cameron grunted as John reached down and began fondling him.

“In me. Now.”

Cameron grabbed John’s hips and rolled over on top of him. “Is that so?’

John bucked up against him as Cameron cupped his face in his hands and kissed him. “Please?”

“Better. You’re getting pushy.”

“Shut up, you like me pushy.”

“Yeah.” Moving so their cocks rubbed together, Cameron realized he had on less clothing than he had gone to bed wearing. “Hey, when did you strip my pants off?”

Thrusting up and breathing hard, John’s hands were firmly clasping Cameron’s hips. “When you wouldn’t wake up. I lubed up too. You okay like this, no pain?”

“I’m good. Wrap your legs around me.” John happily complied and Cameron lined up and pushed and was fully embedded within three strokes. “Damn baby.”

John groaned as his _panor’eten_ finally began to move and picked up the pace to where he wanted it. “Harder.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, please, I can take it.” 

And he did.

Cam decided he didn't mind being woken up for sex. Not at all.


	22. Fall

**September**  
Before his surprise pregnancy, Evan Lorne would have thought he was the partner with the obsessive and controlling nature. But then Atlantis had taken it upon herself to mess with them and he had been one of the victims and overnight his _keri_ had become a mother hen of the highest order. 

It was embarrassing sometimes, for instance, when David criticized his food choices in the Mess Hall in front of a crowd of people. Or when he insisted on accompanying Evan to every checkup and grilled the doctors and snitched on everything Evan had done since his last appointment. Evan suspected there might even be charts detailing his toilet habits; David was that thorough.

Evan found it best to do whatever David said, and after a while he began to like being looked after. It made a nice change, having someone else be in charge.

Their discussions on how they were possibly going to care for two babies had become somewhat heated after Chloe’s birth, before they knew there would be three. David did not want to let strangers care for their baby. He had insisted on taking Chloe to the greenhouses with him when he went to work. He carried her in a sling, cuddled against his chest most of the time, and she became an extension of his shoulder at home, cuddled against his neck as David did everything one-handed so that he could keep one hand on her back. 

At first, Evan didn’t mind it, but after a few weeks, it became clear that Chloe was becoming almost too attached to David. She began to cry any time she was put down, bedtime became a loud and traumatic time for the whole family as she screamed her lungs out until David broke and took her into bed with them. Concerned that this was only going to get worse as time went on, Evan finally put his foot down and insisted that Chloe needed to go to the nursery and get used to being around strangers. The first few weeks, David was miserable, but eventually the baby adjusted and David started talking to Evan again.

Sitting around the table in the Mess Hall one afternoon after a staff meeting had let out; Evan, John, and Cam were discussing the changes they expected when their respective babies came. Teyla and Ronon were fielding questions from every side, laughing and sharing their experiences with Torra in her first few months. With a serious expression, Ronon sagely told everyone at the table that lotion made babies very slippery and that they should start on the floor to avert disaster. No matter how much they prodded him, he would share no more about how he came by this knowledge.

The subject changed to work schedules and how they were going to manage to spend time with their children with the duty schedules they all kept. It was Teyla that suggested the Day Plan, as they started calling it. The Athosians shared in the raising of the children of their villages, and Teyla’s idea was that they schedule their work so that one day of the work week, each of them would have a day off and could spend time with the children in the nursery. David loved the idea when Evan told him about it and insisted on being added to the rotation schedule, in fact, he drew one up and handed it to Evan one morning before work.

Evan had laughed, folded the schedule and stuffed it in his pocket. Over lunch, he had shown it to Charlie and Chuck, who had immediately insisted on being added to the plan. Caving to the inevitable, Evan had shown it to John on his way out of the Mess Hall, and John had run off with it to show Momma Mitchell in the kitchen. When he returned, Momma’s name had been added onto the schedule for Monday and Thursday afternoons. 

So they had a plan. The nursery had begun to train some new people in caring for newborns, in anticipation of the influx of new charges to come. Hope O’Neill and Chloe and then Sarah O’Neill became the test babies for the new procedures the nursery was instituting. With all the new faces and caregivers rotating through the nursery, Chloe’s stranger anxiety quickly faded. Basking in the extra attention, Torra became the queen of the roost and went through a bratty phase until it passed.

The news that Evan was carrying twins had shocked them. After the initial surprise wore off, the enormity of having three children in diapers at once hit them and Evan had a few sleepless nights, wondering how they were going to manage. But David soon altered his schedules and plans and convinced Evan that everything would work out. 

Back in May, David went hunting for larger quarters. Evan didn’t want to think about what David could possibly have growing in the greenhouse to trade that had convinced the quartermaster to bump his request to the top of the list. He arrived home one day to find David packing their belongings into crates. The furniture was already gone, off duty marines had been bribed to act as movers for the day. He didn’t ask the cost, and no one ever said a word to him about it. Carrying Chloe and her diaper bag, all the weight he was allowed to tote, he followed along after the dolly carrying the crates.

Their new quarters were in the same building, but up a few levels, in one of the sections that had recently been cleared by security as safe to be used for housing. Evan learned that David had come in two days earlier and cleaned the place, disinfecting the large room that was to be the nursery. There were new Athosian woven rugs on the floor, and none of the furniture had sharp corners. The entire place was already baby-proof, though Chloe was only just able to lift her head up now, crawling was still months away. 

He was not allowed to work at all for a few weeks after they found he was carrying twins, he went out on medical leave. Beckett and Fraiser were extremely nervous about Evan’s condition, insisting on weekly exams. They were concerned for the smaller of the two babies, the one that was on the bottom. While the one boy grew at an expected rate of development, the second baby was lagging behind. The smaller baby had an irregular heartbeat that the doctors were keeping a close eye on. Evan had worn a monitor for a few days to give them a graph of the heartbeats. Curled on one side, facing Evan’s spine, the doctors were unable to get a clear image on the sonogram of their worrisome tiny patient. Beckett confided in Evan that the second baby might not make it if it did not start to grow more quickly. The irregular heartbeat indicated that there might be other developmental issues. 

All the concerns from the medical team got David riled up. When Evan hemmed and hawed about telling Mitchell and Sheppard about the change, David had gone behind his back to John and told him he needed to talk to Evan. Irked with his _keri_ for the interference, when he started back to work, on restricted hours, Evan had finally confided in John, and then unloaded his worries and concerns about the second baby to his friend. Sheppard has listened sympathetically, offered some comforting advice and then ordered Evan off duty for the duration of his pregnancy. 

He occupied himself reading, drawing or painting. Bored after only a few days at home alone, he started visiting the nursery with his sketch pad and spent hours drawing Hope, Chloe, Sarah, and Tommy Quinn when he started coming in. He grew more comfortable around the babies, and got used to being surrounded by several at a time. He often sat on cushions on the floor while Hope crawled around trying to keep up with Torra and the three other toddlers that were being cared for in the nursery. 

Evan started to be fascinated by the expressions on the tiny faces as they discovered their own tongue, or fingers or toes. He tried to capture the smiles and giggles on paper, sketching madly as he watched the expressions flitter across the little faces. As his sketch pads filled up, every inch of paper covered with drawings, he had to admit that the time spent in the nursery each day had greatly improved his drawing. It had also given him a chance to spend time with Chloe, which hadn’t sucked. 

He had also waddled down to the greenhouses to eat lunch with David everyday, and he spent time there sketching plants. David surprised him one day by tearing a page from the sketchpad and tacking it up over his potting bench. It seemed Evan had inadvertently drawn David’s favorite flower on the same page as a sketch of Chloe laughing. His _keri_ had been so happy with the simple sketch that Evan decided he would have to do a painting for him. When David let him have his paints back. Someone had mentioned that inhaling the fumes from the paint might be harmful for Evan and the babies, so his paints had been confiscated. 

By the middle of August, getting around was awkward and painful at times. Evan couldn’t stand for any great length of time before his back started to hurt; the weight of his distended belly was actually pulling his spine out of alignment. Still concerned for the underdeveloped twin, Beckett suggested that Evan stay in bed and not wander around the city too much. It wasn’t strict bed rest, but it might as well have been since that was how David interpreted it. His _keri_ scrounged up a pile of paperbacks for him to read, and left him a tray of snacks and drinks on the nightstand each morning. He returned at midday to eat lunch with Evan and keep him company and then was gone for the afternoon. 

The worst part of the bed rest was that he missed Chloe. One afternoon when David came in, Evan looked up at him and started to sniffle. He couldn’t help it. Handing him a handkerchief, David had asked him what was bothering him and he confessed that he missed the babies. He missed work too, he was bored, but he really missed spending time in the nursery and seeing Chloe and the other children. The next day, when David came home for lunch, he had the baby with him. Having just learned to roll over, Chloe flopped back and forth on the bed beside him as he and David ate their lunch. He was able to give her a bottle before David needed to go back to work and took the baby away again. 

After lunch, Cam Mitchell turned up at the door with Mackenzie and spent the afternoon with him, letting Evan cuddle the newborn to his heart’s content. It was a little weird, being social with Cam without John being there, but the baby was a nice buffer and gave them something to talk about. Apparently, Mitchell was cool with it because he came every few days after that. From Cam, Evan got a better understanding of the kind of recovery he could expect after the babies came. 

He told Cam about the second baby, which surprised the Marshal, Sheppard had kept the information to himself. The latest concern was that the smaller baby had not been moving during the last few sonograms. Though neither Beckett nor Evan had told David, the doctor had tried to warn Evan that the tiny one might not make it, even if he or she survived the birth. Mitchell had hugged him and tried to comfort him with the fact that they had the best doctors in the Pegasus galaxy here to take care of them. He also promised to pray for them, which surprised Evan, he had not realized that Mitchell was at all religious. Pregnancy and babies had brought him closer to Mitchell than flight school or their capture by the Genii ever had. 

John and Cam decided to have a naming ceremony for their daughter, an Athosian tradition that many people were adopting. They set the date for September eighth, the baby’s one month birthday. There would be a picnic held in the Garden Park, one of the new outdoor areas of the city that had been developed and opened for everyone to use. Their family and friends had been invited, and Evan had begged David, with Carson’s blessing, to stop fussing and let him go. 

As soon as they got to the outdoor pavilion where the picnic was being set up, David had set up a nylon folding chair and Evan was ordered to sit there and not move. He would have pouted, but David left Chloe on a blanket near his feet so he had something to hold his attention while everyone else set up. Spotting Evan, Sam Carter had brought a sleeping Hope over and set up her chair near his. Carrying her stuffed dog, Torra came over and sat on the blanket and then stuck her thumb in her mouth as she watched the adults setting up chairs and trays of food on the picnic tables beneath the pavilion. It made Sam and Evan laugh when Torra toppled over and napped beside Chloe.

Passing by with a bench over one shoulder, Ronon saw his daughter and smirked. “Recharging time,” he commented. Then he looked more closely at Evan and his smile grew broader. “You’re huge!” Evan just rolled his eyes and waved Ronon away.

Teyla, dressed in a beautiful colorful flowing dress, led the ceremony, guiding John and Cam through the traditional words and lighting of a candle. It was simple, sweet and sentimental. They had asked Carson to be the baby’s godfather. The doctor had proudly held Mackenzie through the ceremony and said a few words later as they toasted the family about how he had never expected to be standing there toasting for this baby but he was very honored to be part of her life. 

David fixed Evan a plate and brought it to him. He had just finished his coleslaw when he felt a sharp pinch on his bare arm. He glanced down and saw a bug fly off. He reached out and grabbed David’s arm tightly and hissed, “We have bees here? When the hell did we get bees?”

“They were frozen in the Ancient sample cases, I told you about that. We started a few hives to help with the pollination of the crops on the outdoor fields. Evan, what’s wrong?”

“I’m allergic to bees. I just got stung.”

His _keri_ blanched and then gulped. “How allergic?”

In reply, Evan held up his arm, which was beginning to swell. “Allergic enough to need a shot.”

“Doctor Beckett!!!” David shouted. 

Beckett came running, With John close behind him. The doctor got Evan out of the chair and started walking him towards the doors leading inside. Sheppard scooped up Chloe and told David to go with Evan, assuring him that he would see to the baby.

A medical team met them in the corridor and Evan was lifted onto the gurney, just in time, he was having difficulty breathing. An oxygen mask was slapped on his face and he felt the pinch of an injection in his neck. The trip to the infirmary was a blur; he could hear Beckett giving orders. David held his hand tightly, running alongside the gurney. 

Doctor Beckett’s hand was warm on his forehead as he turned Evan’s face to look at him. “Are you with me, lad?” Evan nodded. “The wee baby is in distress, I think we’re going to have to deliver them early, to save the little one.”

“Is Evan in danger?” David asked breathily, clutching Evan’s hand so tightly he was cutting off the circulation.

“I think we’ve stopped the reaction to the sting, but his elevated heart rate and the shot have affected the babies. Janet, Carolyn and I discussed it, we think it best for Evan and the babies if we take them now.”

Evan pushed aside his mask and said, “They aren’t due for over a month.”

“We’ll be able to do more for them out here now,” Carson said gently. “If we don’t operate today, I’m afraid the smaller twin won’t survive.” It was the first time Beckett had voiced his concerns in front of David, at Evan’s request; they had kept the more troubling possibilities from him. 

“Then do it, what are you waiting for?” David blurted. He kissed Evan’s cheek and they wheeled him away to the surgery.

They put the mask over his face and he counted backwards from ten.

~*~

  


“Evan, you have to wake up. Come on,” David said near his ear and lightly slapped his cheek. “Stubborn _panor_ , open your eyes, it's been two days.”

When David put a hand on Evan’s shoulder and started to shake, he grabbed it and held it. “I’m up. Stop beating on me.”

“Oh, thank God,” David cried and rained kisses on his cheeks before turning to yell over his shoulder, “Doctor Beckett, he’s awake!”

“Two days?” No wonder his mouth felt like cotton candy. “Water?”

David picked up a water bottle from beside the bed and cupped the back of Evan’s head and lifted it so that he could drink. “You had a bad reaction to the anesthesia they used, possibly because of the bee sting.”

“How are the babies?”

“They’re fine, both of them. Little Guy is in an incubator, but he’s breathing on his own and his heartbeat is more regular than it was when they were born.”

“Boys?”

Carson came in and looked relieved to see Evan awake. “Aye, you’ve two sons and I’d appreciate names so that the staff would stop calling them Big Guy and Little Guy. Your _keri_ refused to give us anything until you woke up.”

“You coulda told them, David, we decided.”

“But I didn’t know which to pick for which, we’ll wait for you to decide.”

He was very uncomfortable. “Can I sit up a little?” David sprang to raise the bed as the Doctor checked Evan’s vitals. “When can I see the babies?”

“In a little while, I want to check you over and run a couple of tests.”

It took almost an hour before Beckett relented and David was allowed to bring one of the boys in. “This is Big Guy, he doesn’t have to sleep in the nasty incubator, does he?” David kissed the baby’s head and gently slipped him into Evan’s arms. 

“He’s so much tinier than Chloe was,” Evan whispered as he looked at his son’s face. 

“Still bigger than his brother. They’ll catch up eventually; they won’t always be so tiny. He has a good grip.” His _keri_ was leaning across the mattress, his eyes going from the baby to Evan and back. 

“Let’s call him Tarzan,” Evan joked as he stroked the tiny arm with the tip of his finger.

David looked at him with wide eyes and shook his head, “Please, no. You said the firstborn would be Tristan John, he was born first.”

Blinking sleepily, Evan nodded and leaned back against the pillow. “Then Tristan John it is. I don’t think I’m going to be able to stay awake to meet Artie.”

Gathering the blanket swaddled baby up into his arms, David nodded. “I can see and sense that, you’re fading fast, love. Give the baby a kiss; you can meet his brother when you wake up again.” He held the baby up close enough for Evan to drop a kiss on the tiny forehead.

~*~

  


When he opened his eyes again, John was sitting in the chair beside the bed, Mackenzie snuggled against him in a baby sling as he read from a datapad. “Hey Sheppard.”

“About time you woke up. You’re scaring your _keri_ with these extended naps of yours.” John set the datapad aside and stared at him. “How you feeling?”

“Exhausted, wrung out. How long did I sleep?” 

“Another day away, according to the doc. I just sent David to shower and eat.”

Another whole day? “Damn. Did you see the boys?” 

“They’re so tiny, Evan! But they’re gorgeous, both of them. I’m honored that you named TJ for me.”

“Shoulda made David take that bet. Three days, not even a week,” Evan mumbled.

“What?”

“Nothing. You’re our best friend; of course we’re naming our son after you, well, one of our sons. I haven’t seen Arthur yet, I passed out yesterday.”

“So I heard. David will be back anytime now, do you want to wait for him or do you want me to find a nurse?”

Evan shook his head. “I’ll wait for David. I see you’re doing the sling thing too.”

“Gift from Teyla, and Kenzie likes it, so yeah. Cam is having delusions about her learning all about running Atlantis by osmosis if we take her to work every day.”

“You know, I don’t think I have ever heard you do that before.”

Looking confused john asked, “What?”

“Call him Cam. You always call him Cameron.”

John shrugged, “Sometimes I do. I just like Cameron better.”

“Nicknames for everyone else, but you use his full name when he has a perfectly good nickname that everyone uses… never mind, I get it now. You are just so contrary, Sheppard.” 

“Are you finally awake?” David asked, coming in and walking to Evan’s side. He leaned in and kissed his forehead. David’s hair was wet and his shirt was sticking to him, he had apparently showered and dressed quickly.

“Get me a wheelchair, I want to see Artie.”

From the chair by the bed, John grinned at him. “See, now you beat me to it. I’ll have to call him Arthur.”

David pointed a finger at him as he walked past and declared,” You are just a contrary man, John Sheppard.”

“Is there an echo in here? Uh oh, someone is awake.” A moment after John spoke; a tiny wail erupted from the sling and he wrestled to get the baby out of it. “I’m gonna go get her fed and stuff. I’m glad you’re okay, Ev. Congratulations on the boys.” John stood up and patted Evan’s foot and left.

Getting into the chair was a struggle, but he managed to make it without passing out. David pushed him across the infirmary to the tiny isolation room where the incubator was. It was a regular Earth type incubator, a little glass box that made Evan instantly uncomfortable. 

“How long does he have to be in that thing?”

“A few more days, they want to make sure his immune system is strong.” 

Pressing his nose to the Ancient plexiglas, “Man, I thought Tristan was tiny. Is he really okay?”

David’s hands were on his shoulders and he squeezed. “Yes, he has oxygen and a glucose drip, but Doctor Fraiser says he’s doing fine. If you’re up to it, they’ll let you hold him, but you have to put a gown and mask and gloves on.”

“The poor little guy.” Evan wanted to go in there and pick him up now.

“Artie. Stop calling him little guy, he’ll get a complex.”

 

When Evan was released from the infirmary, they were able to take Tristan but Arthur had to stay in the incubator. That night, Evan couldn’t sleep very well, worrying about their other child so far away, and alone in the stupid plastic box. If his pillow was a little damp in the morning, he wasn’t admitting to anything beyond a little drool.

Arthur being held back gave them a few days to settle in with the newborn and Chloe so by the time Artie was finally able to come home, David had a schedule and routine down that they were able to adapt for the last member of their family. 

The morning that Artie came home, Wendy Mitchell turned up at their door and walked in past David, who was yawning and weaving on his feet from exhaustion. She clucked her tongue and took David by the hand and led him to the sofa and pushed at him until he sat down beside Evan. And that was when David lost control of the situation. Momma showed them exactly where Cam had gotten his leadership skills and style, ordering both Evan and David around all day. But when evening came, all three babies were fed and bedded down and the exhausted parents were able to shower and go to their own bed for a full night of sleep. Albeit one interrupted by three feedings, but they could handle that.

The next day Momma brought a woman that had come with Telford on the Hrsul ships. Her name was Hannah and she had been going to college to be a teacher before the Hrsul attacks. Momma had met her when she started working in the kitchens and the two had become friendly. When the call went out for volunteers to work in the nursery, Hannah had excitedly told Momma she was going to apply to take the training classes. Apparently, Momma had decided that Hannah was going to have a crash course in the Momma Mitchell infant training program. Momma and Hannah came every day for three weeks to help them. By the time Evan was recovered and ready to return to work, Momma had returned to the kitchens and Hannah was a fixture in their household.

 

**September**  
Jonas came into their quarters and called out excitedly, “Alison, do you have enough credits to get some trade goods?”

She finished pinning Tommy’s diaper and slipped a blanket under him. After wrapping him up, she lifted him to her shoulder and walked out into the main room. “I’m sure I do, I didn’t use many for the diapers. Why?”

He smiled broadly, “Good! There is a trading excursion to Nalanos, my name came up in the lottery but I don’t have enough credits to get a trade bundle. You said we needed clothes for Tommy, we could get fabric.”

Laughing lightly she asked, “Do you sew? I can’t thread a needle.”

“No, but Gina from the forensics lab does and she’s willing to sew in exchange for a few yards of red fabric.”

“Red fabric?”

“She wants to make herself a red dress.” 

Tommy began to fuss a little, so Allie shifted him and began to rock him. “When is the excursion?”

“Eighteen hundred hours, Janet said she would take Tommy so that we could both go.”

At that, she clutched Tommy a little tighter. “Both of us?”

He knew her well enough to know why she was nervous. “The lottery is for two people. Don’t you want Tommy to have time with his Auntie Janet? He’ll be fine, Allie.”

“But…”

Jonas moved close to her and bent to kiss their son’s head. “Janet is thrilled to babysit. All these babies being born and she doesn’t get to spend any time with them. We might not get another chance to go off world like this for a year or two.”

She couldn’t deny him the chance, he was so excited.

~*~

  
Shopping would have been more fun if she had not been obsessing over what her son was doing. Was he crying? It was feeding time, was he giving Janet a hard time with the bottle?

Jonas held up the corner of a bolt of cloth, a questioning expression on his face. “This one is soft.” 

Walking over, she touched it with her fingertips and nodded. It had turned out that Jonas was better at bargaining than she was, so she let him barter a box of glass beads and a spool of jewelry grade wire for enough of the fabric to make a few rompers for Tommy as well as a shirt for Jonas. He liked the soft green fabric that much. 

The marketplace was one that Teyla Emmagen had recommended when the need for the citizens of Atlantis to trade had become more pressing. The party of civilians was accompanied by two Gate teams, who were on hand to assist if the need arose. But these traders had become accustomed to the parties from Atlantis coming to trade and there had not been any altercations here in months. 

She took the bundle of fabric and tucked it beside the red silk yardage in the shoulder bag she carried. It really wasn’t a bad exchange, a bit of fabric for the clothing Tommy needed. Allie looked forward to meeting Gina and seeing how she liked the gorgeous red fabric they had found, it was a deep red that Allie was a little jealous over.

Though they had come to find fabrics, Jonas found a few handmade toys for the baby and insisted on getting an ornately carved hair comb for Alison that he slipped into place as soon as he had given the craftswoman the small knife that had been the agreed upon trade price. 

On the way back to the Gate, Allie began to worry that they had too much fabric, but Jonas reminded her that Tommy would be growing quickly and would need new clothing before they had another opportunity to go trading. They would also be able to trade what they did not need within Atlantis too. 

Gina, a petite young woman that was clearly of Mediterranean descent, was thrilled with the fabric they brought her. The red would look just perfect on her with her complexion and dark hair and eyes. She seemed excited by the prospect of making something out of the soft textiles they had traded their entire pack away to get.

A week later, the chime at their door rang a few minutes after Alison had collected Tommy from the nursery and arrived home. Putting Tommy on a blanket she had spread on the rug, Allie went to open the door. Gina was standing there, smiling happily as she held out a stack of clothing. “I couldn’t wait to bring this, I hope you like everything.” 

Allie invited her in and the lab tech was enchanted with Tommy. She knelt down and shook a rattle for him as he cooed and smiled and kicked his feet happily. The clothes were beautiful; tiny little pants and shirts in a rainbow of colors. “How did you know his size?” Allie asked as she held up a one piece romper made from some of the tan fleece-like material they had found. 

Grinning, Gina waved a hand casually, “I’m from a big family, lots of siblings and cousins and lots of babies. Even if the stuff is too big, you can roll up the sleeves and cuffs and they’ll grow into it.” 

“I can’t believe you made all this in a week. We didn’t expect this many pieces, Gina, you overdid it.”

“I’m my own assembly line. I did all the cutting first, then just sewed while I watched movies on my laptop. It was fun, it reminded me of home. There’s still a lot of fabric left, I was too eager to see if you liked these.”

“I love these.” Running a hand over a tiny pair of overalls that were made from a fabric that had reminded Allie of denim, she looked at Gina and told her, “You could really rake in the credits doing this, Gina. You have a talent.”

“I don’t need the credits,” Gina shrugged and blushed, turning her attention back to Tommy.

“But people are going to need what you can do. There’s so many people expecting now, and we hardly have a Baby Gap in the city.”

Gina waved a hand dismissively, “I have no head for business. I wouldn’t know how to start.”

“You just did. Just keep trading for things you want, let people bring you the fabric and thread the way Jonas and I did.” Allie picked up a one piece outfit that fastened with a few snaps. “Where did you get the snaps?”

“A machinist is making them, I made him a shirt and he made me a hundred of them.”

“See, you’re already doing it. Trade is the way our economy has to work here.” She tugged the cut down t-shirt that Tommy was wearing off him and dressed him in the soft green onesie. “Look at this, he’s so adorable.” She held him up for Gina to admire her handiwork. The legs and arms were a tiny bit too long, but once Gina rolled up the sleeves, it didn’t matter. It wasn’t as if he was crawling yet, the tiny bit of extra fabric around his ankles and feet wouldn’t get in his way.

“I don’t know any of the other people expecting, I’d feel weird just walking up to people.”

Allie snuggled Tommy into the crook of her neck and stood up. She picked up a few pieces of the clothing and headed towards the door. “Come on.”

“What? Where?”

“I know some people that need you; I was just talking to them when I picked up Tommy at the nursery.” She led the way through the residential wing and stopped in front of a door, waving a hand over the chime. 

She heard a call of “Coming” from inside. When the door opened, Allie smiled at David Parrish. She had only come to know the botanist since she started bringing the baby to the nursery, but she liked him. She was still a little nervous around his partner, Sub Commander Lorne, but she was growing accustomed to him as well. He was far less intimidating being hugely pregnant and wielding a pencil and drawing pad as he often was when she saw him these days. 

“Alison, hello!” They had been on a first name basis for a few weeks now. 

“Hello, David. Do you remember me mentioning the young lady that was making clothes for Tommy? This is Gina. Look at the great things she made!” Allie handed him the outfits she had picked up on the way out. 

Stepping back and inviting them inside with a wave of his hand to enter, he fingered the soft clothing and then looked at Gina with a pleading look. “Can you make dresses?”

Laughing, Gina nodded. “Oh, I love to make dresses.” 

“Do you cook?”

“I’m Italian, of course I cook.”

“I will keep you in tomatoes, peppers, oregano and basil if you can make clothes for our kids.”

It finally seemed to dawn on Gina that she could benefit from her hobby. “May I meet your daughter, so I can get an idea of her size?”

David nodded. “Hey Ev, bring Chloe in.”

“I was making her presentable. Hello, Doctor Porter,” Sub Commander Lorne said as he came into the room carrying the baby. 

“Gina makes clothes.”

Lorne gave Gina a look that was almost identical to the one his partner had given her. “Please, make something for Chloe. She’s wearing my old cut down t-shirts.” Most of the babies in the nursery were, actually. Baby clothes for babies that did not exist yet had not been high on the list of things to toss through the Gate during the evacuations.

“Is there enough of this green fabric to make a dress for Chloe, Gina?” Allie touched a hand to the onesie that Tommy was now wearing.

“More than enough, even after Jonas’ shirt is cut.” 

David was still looking at the tiny shirts and pants Allie had brought. “We’ll get you fabric, Gina. I’ll trade for it. How much do you need?”

“For baby clothes? Not much, half a yard is a safe bet, depending on the width of the piece, I can make do with less with judicious cutting.” 

“Please, use some of the green, a gift for Chloe from Jonas and I and Tommy too.” It made Allie feel good, to do such a small thing, introducing Gina to the Lornes and giving a little bit of fabric. They all seemed so happy when Allie and Gina left. 

“Thank you. I wouldn’t have been able to do that myself. I’m so excited, to be able to make my mama’s sauce again.” 

Allie led her new friend to the transporter and into another residential corridor. She nodded to a marine at the end of the corridor, walking sentry duty. 

She had never come up here personally, but she knew where she was going. She shuffled from foot to foot nervously as she waited for the door to be answered. “Hello Commander,” she said when the door slid open.

“Doctor Porter. Is everything okay?” Commander Sheppard asked, glancing at Gina and then looking at Tommy cradled against Allie’s shoulder. 

“Oh, fine, fine. I wanted to introduce you to Gina Taraglia.” Though he had no idea what was going on, Commander Sheppard was gracious. He held a hand out in greeting to Gina. 

“Gina sews in her spare time, and she made some beautiful clothes for Tommy. I thought maybe you might be interested in some trade work.”

He leaned against the doorframe. “Well, funny you should turn up; we were just trying to convince Momma to make us some clothes. She knits and crochets.”

“I wish I knew how to crochet. I always loved using crocheted notions on dresses for my nieces,” Gina said wistfully. “I have no talent with yarn though.”

Allie fingered the green onsie her son was wearing. “She made this for Tommy.”

“Did she? Let me see the little man there.” He straightened away from the door frame and held his hands out. Allie passed him the baby. “Hey buddy. Look how big you’re getting.” He blew a raspberry on Tommy’s cheek and the baby giggled happily. He was always friendly when she saw him in the nursery, which was what had given Allie the courage to come and introduce Gina. 

“Well, with another baby coming, we’re certainly going to need clothes. I’m not exactly sure what we can offer in trade.” Sheppard gave Tommy back to Allie after making some funny faces at him. “Oh, wait, I know. Do you cook?”

“Do I cook? My family owned Buena Cucina in Colorado Springs. I was raised in the kitchen.”

He smiled. “Cam and I don’t use our kitchen time. We’re kinda spoiled with Momma working down there. We could trade you two officer’s time allotments in exchange. And the fabric, of course.”

“On one condition, Sub Commander,” Gina said.

“Which is?”

“You allow me to cook for you when I collect my tomatoes, peppers and basil from Doctor Parrish.”

“Deal!” Sheppard stuck out his hand and they shook on it. “Kenzie’s sleeping, but do you want to see her?”

“I would, so I can get an idea of how big she is.” Gina and Allie tiptoed into the baby’s room after him as he proudly showed off his daughter. As they left, Sheppard told them that they should check with Momma about the crochet things she made. 

Tommy was beginning to fuss, so Allie had to call it an evening, besides, Jonas would be wondering where they were. Gina thanked her profusely for introducing her around and said that she would be brave in the morning and see what she could work out on her own with Wendy Mitchell in the kitchen. 

When they got home, Jonas was delighted with the clothing as well as with Allie’s initiative in pushing Gina into business. 

 

**September 4th**  
“If I sign this, it changes everything. I’ll be single-handedly responsible for undoing fifty years of the laws we’ve been living under,” Cam said as he stared at the document on his desk. 

Commander Telford cleared his throat and said, “Laws that have clearly become outdated, Marshal.”

“It’s the right thing, Cameron,” John added. He was leaning against the wall by the door. The office was crowded with senior officers and the members of the civilian legal advisory board. Richard Woolsey, citing an inability to work with the military had stepped down. The woman that had taken his place, Camille Wray, was a lot easier to deal with, in the opinion of almost the entire senior staff.

“It will do wonders for morale, Marshal. With the upswing in pregnancies outside the bond, the _Keri_ Laws are clearly no longer necessary for the survival of the human race,” Camille said.

Cam nodded and signed the document. He pushed it across the desk and Miss Wray signed as a witness. Jack O’Neill, sitting beside the head of the council, also signed as a witness. Cam carefully rolled up the document and placed it in a tube and sealed it, placing it on the shelf behind his desk for safekeeping. “Okay, it’s done.”

There was a smattering of applause as he turned back to look at the people gathered in the room. “Any other business?” He knew what was to come; the question was really a formality.

“I would like to make a request of your office, Marshal Mitchell,” Rodney McKay called, moving forward. 

“I figured you would, Doctor McKay,” Cam smiled at him. Weeks of arguments and discussions had led to today. As a major voice in the movement, McKay was entitled to his moment, in Cam’s opinion.

McKay turned slightly and held a hand out to Captain Cadman, standing behind him. “I would like to be the first.”

“Captain Cadman, are you amenable to this?” The question led to a wave of laughter from those who had come here today expressly for this ceremony.

“Yes sir!” 

Having prepared for this, adapting and memorizing a ceremony he had found in an old military handbook that predated the alien invasions of the fifties, Cam stood up and circled his desk to stand in front of Rodney. “Very well then. Do you Rodney McKay take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife? Do you promise before these witnesses to honor and cherish her, to stay true and faithful only to her? Do you promise to stand beside her through sickness, health, good times and bad?

“I do,” Rodney smiled at Laura.

“Do you Laura Cadman promise to honor and cherish this man? Do you promise to stay true and faithful only to him? Do you promise to stand beside him through sickness, health, good times and bad?”

Laura nodded, sniffled and whispered, “I do.”

Cam looked around at those watching and interpreted, “She said I do, in case you didn’t hear. Then as the current head of the Lantean military and by the authority of the Civilian Council of the City of Atlantis I hereby pronounce you husband and wife. You may exchange a symbol of your union.” When they blinked at him, Cam suggested, “Kiss your bride, McKay.” The onlookers cheered and the gathering broke up to move to the mess hall for cake and coffee. 

By the end of the day, the waiting list for civil ceremonies was so long it would take two weeks to sort out. Camille Wray’s prediction was correct, moral improved and even the staff of the new department that had been created to conduct weddings was happy, though a bit overwhelmed.

~*~

  
Jonas stroked Allie’s arm as he sat beside her on the bed. “Are you going to wake up today, sleepy head?”

“Is my day off, go ‘way!” She burrowed into the pillow.

He chased her, kissing her shoulder and neck until she relented and rolled into his arms for proper kissing. When she was more awake, he smiled at her. “I have a present for you.” He reached over to the nightstand and picked up a tissue paper-wrapped bundle and placed it on her tummy. 

Sitting up, she undid the wrapping and gasped as she saw the red fabric that they had bought for Gina pool out into her lap. It was a sheath dress, with spaghetti straps. “Jonas, how? We bought this for Gina!”

“She made her dress and had enough left to make this for you. A gift to show her gratitude for getting her started with the sewing business and getting her out of the forensics lab.”

She touched the sensuous material. The color had been what had drawn her eye in the marketplace, she had been kind of sad giving it away, and now she had this dress. Jonas touched her cheek and said, “I thought maybe you might like to wear it today. I was hoping maybe you’d marry me, I made an appointment for eighteen hundred hours, but I can cancel if you’d rather not.”

“Oh Jonas!” Dropping the dress, she threw her arms around his neck and hugged him. “You silly thing, of course I will.” 

Jonas had asked Janet Fraiser to come and stand with them as their witness at the ceremony. The doctor held Tommy though the short ceremony and happily kissed both of their cheeks and told them to go off and have fun; she would take care of the baby for the rest of the evening. They went to one of the dance halls in the civilian section of the city and had a great time celebrating. 

While they were slow dancing, her new husband admitted that though he loved her in the new dress, he really wanted to see her out of it. They couldn’t get home fast enough to suit Allie. They found a note from Janet, telling them she had kidnapped Tommy and they could collect him in the morning, after they had spent some quality “Mommy and Daddy time” together. 

 

**October 1st**  
Doctor Heightmeyer had seemingly become a permanent fixture in their lives, Jason thought as he shifted to get comfortable on the couch in her office. Nate had been benefiting from talking with her over the past few months. Recently, she had asked that Jason join them in the sessions so that they could work though some of the issues that concerned them as a couple and would impact their family once the baby came.

Though still nervous about the baby, Nate was no longer waking up in the night with nightmares brought on by stress. It was progress, in Jason’s opinion. 

“Are you okay, Jase?” Nate asked as he shifted again and bumped his partner.

“I’m hot. It’s very warm in here.”

The doctor looked at him oddly then went to the window and opened it. “You might be more comfortable in a chair over here, Jason,” she said, patting the chair beside the window. Though he usually liked to be where Nate could touch him, or grab his hand, Jason was too uncomfortable on the sofa and changed seats. 

“How are the nightmares, Nate?” the doctor asked as she slid into her chair and crossed her legs. She didn’t take notes during their sessions; she just listened intently to everything that was said. 

“Better. I haven’t had one since the last session.”

She nodded in approval. “Three weeks, that makes it almost two months since you’ve had one.”

“Yeah. I still get a little shaky when I go to the park though.” The doctor had suggested that Nate acclimate himself to the areas where he would be spending time as a parent. He had started by visiting the nursery with Jason to arrange for the eventual care of their child. Nate had been a wreck after that, being around all those babies. Jason had not realized just how deep his _panor’eten’s_ fears went until he had started facing them head on. The walks in the park past the playground had been hard at first, but Nate was calmer now and no longer squeezed the crap out of his hand went they went.

She made a quiet ‘mmhmm’ and then asked, “Why do you think you get nervous at the park?”

Jason held his breath, she hadn’t asked a direct question like that in a while, had not forced Nate to talk about things that happened to him. Everything that had come up had been volunteered by Nate. “I can leave,” he offered quietly.

“No, stay, I should talk about it,” Nate waved at him to sit back down. Jason slumped back in the chair, trying to ignore the pain that had been bothering his back all day.

Taking a deep breath, Nate closed his eyes. “I hate parks and playgrounds in particular.”

“Why?” the doctor coaxed.

“There was a park near our house. I used to like to go on the slide and climb on the monkey bars. When my mom hooked up with her boyfriend, she used to make him take me there. At first it wasn’t bad, he let me play while he hung out on the bench watching.”

When Nate fell silent, the doctor urged him to continue. “What happened later?”

“It started there, at the park. He would take me away from the playground to the picnic area. That’s where the touching started. I hated the park.”

“Are you afraid that something bad like that will happen at the park here?” Doctor Heightmeyer asked.

“No. I guess not. I never said it was a reasonable thing, Doc,” Nate chuckled and rubbed a hand over his face. 

Jason lost track of the conversation, the doctor was giving Nate an exercise to do when he felt an odd cramp in his middle. He pressed a hand against his belly and felt the baby kick, hard. It was probably from the baby trying to move, with a little over three weeks until delivery, there couldn’t be much room for the poor little thing in there. A few minutes later, he felt another pain and it was higher up than where he had felt the kick.

Nate’s hands fell on his shoulders and squeezed. “Jason, what’s wrong? You’re as white as sheet.”

“I don’t know. I think the baby is moving a lot. I don’t feel so good.”

The doctor had come over and stood beside the chair. “Do you have pains, Jason?’

“Yeah, my back and here and here,” he rubbed a hand over the places he had felt the pain and gasped as another hit him. 

“Can you walk? We should take you to the infirmary.”

By the time they reached infirmary level, he was clinging to Nate and panting through wave after wave of pain. The doctor had radioed ahead and a med team met them with a gurney and he was lifted carefully up onto it and wheeled the rest of the way. Minutes after his arrival, he was being rushed into surgery for a caesarian section. Nate kissed his forehead before they took him away. The baby wasn’t going to wait any more. 

They knocked him out for the surgery, it was standard procedure because _keri_ deliveries could go bad very quickly and the heavier sedation was better in those circumstances. 

He groggily opened his eyes when he heard his name being called. A familiar warm hand pressed against his cheek. “Hey, Jase, wake up. Come on.”

“Wha?”

“Colton wants to meet you, you have to wake up.”

He forced himself to wake up and look at Nate, smiling stupidly at him. “Baby?”

“He’s perfect, he’s right here, you have to see him!” Nate reached for the bed control and made the head of the bed go up. His excitement was contagious and Jason smiled as his _panor’eten_ gathered a bundle from the little rolling crib beside the bed and turned to lean in to show Jason. “Can you hold him?”

Jason nodded and held his arms up and the baby was awkwardly passed over. “Wow. Look at him.”

“Colton, right? I told them Colton Blake, but if you don’t like it we can change it.” 

“That’s what we picked. He’s so tiny.”

“He’s early. You were bleeding internally, they had to take him. Everything’s okay though, you’re fine, everything is still intact, Doctor Lam said you’re fine.”

“You’re okay Nate?” Jason asked, searching his partner’s face for signs of stress.

Nate smiled and touched his fingers to the baby’s face. “I’m great. It’s like everything makes sense now. He’s perfect. He’s ours, part you and part me.”

Relief washed over Jason, he could sense calmness in Nate through their bond that had been missing ever since they found out about the first baby, the one they had lost. For the first time, he believed that everything was going to be all right.


	23. The End

**October 22**  
“Baby is crying, it’s your turn,” John mumbled into the pillow as he batted Cameron on the hip.

Beside him, Cameron sat up and listened. Then he thumped John on the back of the head as he flopped back down again. “She is not.”

“Is so.”

“If you think so, then you go check on her.”

With a grunt of irritation, since he had done the last bottle and diaper change, John slid out from under the covers and padded barefoot into the nursery. He rubbed his eyes and walked up to the crib and looked down at his peacefully sleeping daughter. “Huh,” he grunted. He tucked the tiny pink blanket around her and went back to Cameron.

“I know I heard crying,” he mumbled as he sat on the edge of the bed. 

The radio on the nightstand chirped and he reached for it. “Sheppard.”

“You need to come to the infirmary, the FIU is flashing like mad,” CB’s voice was sleepy as he delivered the news, “I think it might be time.”

“On my way. Thanks CB.” He reached over and whapped Cameron’s hip again. “The OTHER baby is crying.”

Cameron sat bolt upright and rubbed his face. “What? Is something wrong, is it time?”

“Time. Do you want to take Mackenzie over to Momma?” John asked as he zipped his pants and fastened his belt. His _panor’eten_ was moving slowly, so John opened a drawer and pulled out a t-shirt and tossed it to him. 

“I’ll take Mackenzie over to Momma and then meet you in the infirmary,” Cameron mumbled, pulling the shirt over his head. John didn’t bother telling him that that was what he just asked him about. He kissed Cameron’s cheek as he walked by him and jogged out of their quarters. 

Janet and CB and their team were all crowded around the FIU, which was blinking in a warning fashion. “The timing is right, we think the bloody thing is saying that it is time for delivery, but come check it to be sure, John.” CB beckoned him over with the wave of a hand.

“The city woke me up, it’s time,” John replied, but he went over and put his hands on the machine. he closed his eyes and talked to the machine for a short time. “Everything is fine, time to get the baby out.”

Cameron ran up beside him, skidding to a halt. “Tonight?”

“Aye, now stand back, both of you. Cameron, I am warning you right now, I will sedate you if we have any _panor_ meltdowns. 

“I swear, I’ll behave,” Cameron crossed his heart and held his hand up.

CB pointed a warning finger at him and then turned his attention to the FIU. 

Janet looked up from where she was checking a tray of surgical tools. “Everything went smoothly with Chloe Lorne’s delivery, so we’re going to work things the same way now, I’ll be concentrating on monitoring the baby while Carson deals with detaching the embryonic sac.”

Stepping back to stand behind Cameron, John fell into parade rest, his hands clasped behind his back as he watched the nurses take their places. Keiko wheeled over the heated bassinet and set it off to the side. 

“Still not going to tell me if we’re having a boy or a girl?” Cameron whispered.

John smirked and didn’t look at his partner. “Nope.”

“I apologized for not telling you about Kenzie.”

“You knew for four months and never said a word!” John reminded him. He wasn’t really bothered about it, but teasing Cameron for the last few weeks had been fun. He’d found out the baby’s sex by accident, while trying to get the FIU to communicate with the city’s AI. Holding the knowledge over his _panor’eten’s_ head had been amusing, especially during conversations about choosing a name. 

“I’m opening the unit, Tim, would you bring a towel over to sop up the mess so none of us slip? Wrap it around once the dome slides open,” Beckett directed. Once it was mentioned, John remembered that there had been a lot of fluid pouring over onto the floor when Chloe had been born. 

The top opened and revealed the lumpy white embryonic sac. With a quick swipe of the scalpel, CB made a cut across the sac and Tim reached in with a sponge, trying to keep the surface clean so that the doctor could see what he was doing. The sac was moving as the baby within stretched and kicked. “Well now, this wee one is an active fella, isn’t he? Settle down a moment, and we’ll have you out, little man,” CB remarked. He parted the sac and stepped slightly aside to let Janet get in with her stethoscope and life signs monitor. 

“Little man? It’s a boy?” Cameron called. John chuckled and moved to grab his _panor’eten_ around the waist as he surged forward. He wrapped his arms around him and kept him in place.

“Aye, a boy. Everything looks fine so far.”

Janet was smiling, which reassured John. “Pulse is strong. Reflexes good.”

The medical team worked quickly and efficiently, their experience with Chloe months before serving them well. But it still was not fast enough to suit Cameron. Through the bond, John could feel that his _panor’eten_ was growing more agitated by the minute. He leaned in and spoke quietly near Cameron’s ear. “You need to calm down, you promised CB.”

“I want to go over there,” Cameron said. “It’s making me crazy, seeing so many people handling him.”

John tightened his arms and held him still. “They know what they’re doing, love. You know CB, Janet and Keiko would never do anything to harm him.”

He knew his words were not getting through. Cam was on the edge. “Hey Janet, how much longer?” John called when he realized Cameron was about to lose his cool.

Fraiser turned and saw that John was literally holding Cameron back from the medical team and she rolled her eyes. “One minute. I’ll let you hold him, but then we need to finish checking him over.” She lifted the baby and Keiko wrapped a receiving blanket around the tiny squirming infant. Expertly, Janet took the swaddled bundle and carried him over towards John and Cameron. 

She didn’t bother asking which of them wanted to hold him first, she placed the baby straight into Cameron’s waiting arms. John felt the panic recede and Cameron’s stress level dropped instantly. He caught Janet’s eye and gave her a reassuring nod, the nasty scene that had been threatening to erupt had been averted by her compromise. 

John wrapped his arms around his _panor’eten’s_ waist and peered over his shoulder at their son, giving Cameron time to regain control of his emotions. “He’s got your ears,” he remarked when everything seemed normal again.

“Aw, darn. I like your ears, John.” 

“Poor Kenzie has them,” John reached over and tapped the tiny upturned nose. “I’m totally blaming you for the freckles. They both have freckles.”

Cameron turned his face and kissed John. “Our children are doomed to cuteness. You will not teach them how to pout and use these attributes for evil, John.”

“Would I do that?” John protested feebly.

“Who taught Torra to bat her eyes and say “Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn?”

John chuckled, “She’s awesome with that one.”

“Do not encourage the cute. We’re going to be drowning in it soon,” Cam chastised lightly. Then the baby yawned and flailed his arms and they sighed in unison and said, “Awwww.”

Coming over to stand beside them, CB made a face at their exclamation and reached for the baby’s hand, examining his tiny fingers. He made a note on his datapad and then flashed his penlight over the baby’s eyes. That provoked a scrunched nose, frown and then a squeak of protest when he did it again. “So, have you a name for the record?”

“Cameron?” John poked his _panor’eten_ when he didn’t answer CB’s question. “What’s the baby’s name?”

“Are you sure, the name we discussed?” Cameron asked, and John smiled and nodded at him. “We’re naming him after Lorne. Evan John Mitchell.”

The doctor rubbed a fingertip across the baby’s cheek, smirked and said, “Welcome to Atlantis, EJ.” 

John batted Cameron on the arm after both he and CB ignored John’s bleat of protest. “Stop that, no nicknames yet, we are not calling the baby EJ! Cameron, we did not discuss naming the baby John; I thought we were going with Frank after your father.”

His _panor’eten_ was cuddling the baby, nuzzling his nose near his ear. “That was before we decided on Evan instead of Patrick after your Father. I like EJ. He needs a nickname; it will get confusing having two Evans.”

“So what about Justin, or Jacob or Julian? Those were all on the list.”

Staring straight at John with a very serious look, Cameron said, “We agreed, you choose the first name, I choose the middle. And I choose to name the baby John, after you.” John recognized that tone of voice as well as the emotion coming through the bond. Cameron had made up his mind about this. 

John sighed and looked at his patiently waiting friend. “The baby’s name is Evan John Mitchell, Carson.” CB nodded approvingly and made a note on his datapad. “Cameron, may I hold him for a minute before the vampires come and steal him away?”

Cameron turned and eased the baby into John’s arms. For the past few weeks, John had be uncertain if he would have room in his heart for another baby, he had been so head over heels for Mackenzie since the day he first set eyes on her, but as their son blinked big blue eyes up at him, he realized that his fears had been a waste of time and energy. There was plenty of room for this little guy. “Hey, EJ I’m glad you’re finally out here. We’ve got a lot to show you, buddy.”

 

The End


End file.
